Post #250,914
4/4/06 2:29:51 PM
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Bring on the time of the 12 Monkeys
[link|http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html|http://www.sas.org/t...ture1p/index.html]
Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.
He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.
Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.
AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola ( Ebola Reston ), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs.
After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, \ufffdWe've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that.\ufffd --------- Indeed. Still, the 90% number seems dicey - too thin a margin. Perhaps a test should be performed. Maybe Professor Pianka should address Congress and on that day the building could be sealed and his experiment carried out. If 10% do OK, then the remaining legislators could pass the required law to expand the effort. Assuming they still think its a good idea. Regardless, we'll get a 90% regime change out of it. That can't be bad. Right. Right?
[link|http://www.blackbagops.net|Black Bag Operations Log]
[link|http://www.objectiveclips.com|Artificial Intelligence]
[link|http://www.badpage.info/seaside/html|Scrutinizer]
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Post #250,915
4/4/06 2:34:50 PM
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I have a feeling this guy's possibly misrepresenting Pianka
a tad. I'm reminded of some of the contemporary reactions to Swift's Modest Proposal.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #250,917
4/4/06 2:37:44 PM
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Could be - lack of evidence is troubling
[link|http://www.blackbagops.net|Black Bag Operations Log]
[link|http://www.objectiveclips.com|Artificial Intelligence]
[link|http://www.badpage.info/seaside/html|Scrutinizer]
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Post #250,920
4/4/06 2:47:31 PM
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Read the link
Looks like some of his students are getting the same idea from his class.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #250,938
4/4/06 4:45:18 PM
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That may be
but that doesn't mean that he's not being satirical. It only means that those students are as deaf to satire as the author is.
Let me put it another way. In one sense, he's completely right; if you want to maintain ecological systems in their current form, one needs to reduce the impact of human beings on them by some metric; he's chosen 90% (evidence for his number is another discussion). What's the easiest way to achieve that? Get rid of 90% of the humans. What's the easiest way to achieve that? Use disease to do so.
Don't forget that his training is in ecology, one of the large tenets of which is that ecological systems (including the environment in which they reside) use feedback mechanisms to maintain the suitability for itself in its environment. Simply put, the disease need not arise from human agency; it could be the result of a feedback mechanism deciding that it has to make the environment less suitable for human beings. Assuming that human agency is the only possible source for such an actor as a disease is arrogance and/or speciecentrism. As for the use of the example of ebola, that is where you step into the realm of satire; selecting the nastiest possible agent to effect the change. I suspect his real point is that (esp. at Western levels of consumption) we need to find a way to reduce our impacts by ~90% if we wish to maintain a good world for our descendents. Sometimes satire is one of the better way to get this point across: c.f. A Modest Proposal. After all, the central point of A Modest Proposal is that what the English landowners were doing to the Irish was functionally identical to treating Irish children as meat animals.
One of the central tenets of honourable debate is called Charity: when there are several possible interpretations of a statement, one should take the most charitable one; this is somewhat similar in concept to Occam's Razor. I have presented a far more charitable reading of the point of the speech, and one that fits the facts as we know them. Furthermore, it fits with the kind of awareness of the culture and of forms of storytelling that someone of Pianka's age and experience would have. One of the big problems we've been having in North America's ongoing political discourse is a serious inversion of the principle of charity (i.e. take the worst possible interpretation of an opponent's viewpoint, and use it as a stick to beat up on them so as to help convince third parties of the Rightness Of My Way), and to me this looks like a very good example of this inversion.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #250,945
4/4/06 4:59:33 PM
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Fairy nuff
But your point makes me realize something. If the author is in fact being uncharitable to his subject's point, he relies on me being charitable toward his report. It hadn't occurred to me that he was intentionally mis-reporting the message.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats]. [link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #250,947
4/4/06 5:02:51 PM
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True enough
and, of course, he may not be misrepresenting his subject. However, without knowing the sources we cannot know.
It's a lot easier to set up a strawman to knock ecologists (or perhaps considering Panika's speech those that are Gaiaists) when there is no way to actually find out the truth of the matter.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #251,034
4/4/06 11:22:55 PM
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Re: That may be
>> ...if you want to maintain ecological systems in their current form, one needs to reduce the impact of human beings on them by some metric;"
Reminds me of a book:
[link|http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074320011X/sr=8-1/qid=1144206877/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-8304407-9643852?%5Fencoding=UTF8|http://www.amazon.co...?%5Fencoding=UTF8]
Parasite Rex : Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
from Publisher's Weekly:
"Not only are parasites not all bad, Zimmer concludes in this exemplary work of popular science, but we may be parasites, too and we have a lot to learn from them about how to manage earth, the host we share."
Fascinating book.
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Post #251,063
4/5/06 3:21:34 AM
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Which leads to -
[link|http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670427934/104-0408595-7819166?v=glance&n=283155| Life on Man], still in print after 37 years, evoking that largest idea, Scale -
As above so below.
You don't want to see the critters that inhabit your eyebrows - well, maybe a few do.. Box? (What was it they called parasites who kill their host? (politics aside))
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Post #250,951
4/4/06 5:18:05 PM
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ebola is too efficient
kills faster than it can infect reduce its kill ration to about 50% a pandemic "might" occur. thanx, bill
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 50 years. meep
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Post #250,955
4/4/06 5:30:50 PM
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A re-engineered one might do a better job of it.
That said, I think that if you're really serious, you're going to follow Stephen King's lead and engineer a nasty flu.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #250,978
4/4/06 6:50:50 PM
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I, too, suspect misrepresentation...
While the professor was probably being deliberately provocative, I'm guessing that his spiel would sound less dire in the lecture hall than it does at ax-grinding second-hand.
Of course, if Professor Pianka actually maintains that the earth is threatened by our affluence and our effluents, he's giving the grand old lady and father time between them far too little credit. Certainly we could bring ourselves down, and a few dozen or so phyla with us, but another ten or twenty million years after the last humans starve to death in the ruins of their cities, an extraterrestrial tourist might not readily detect a trace of us.
cordially,
Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
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Post #251,041
4/4/06 11:37:06 PM
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I did so enjoy the PBS romp re Affluenza. Too.
But if Gaia be the inchoate doppelganger for Rama, Siva et al - we must wonder if the Avatar for evolution - might just Love the cosmic humor of rendering the species via Her Rulez.. before the more loathsome members get rupured out? (still clutching their unredeemed Frequent Fulminations coupons.)
Just a thought, Gaia; don't y'all be a listenin to the herd-animals, y'hear?
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Post #251,292
4/7/06 3:35:41 AM
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A tourist, no, a scientist, yes
One of the ways that we figured out continental drift was that you could figure out how species got from A to B, and how they evolved afterwards.
Any scientist studying the fossil records would find it dead obvious that there was a period when a lot of species managed amazing migrations.
Even without a single fossil of us, or any geologic record of our presence (which we've left plenty of, incidentally), that would be a giveaway that something interesting happened.
Cheers, Ben
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
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Post #251,375
4/7/06 10:00:57 PM
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hence ET "tourist" not "scientist" in referenced post
—now and again I do select my terms by means of conscious decision.
cordially,
Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
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Post #251,143
4/5/06 7:04:53 PM
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This has escalated
[link|http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2006/04/05/ecology-prof-20060405.html|This ]was posted on the CBC news site today: Blogs and talk radio programs went on the attack after the story was posted on the internet and featured on the Drudge Report, a popular U.S. news website. Critics accused Pianka of saying that the Ebola virus should be used to kill most humans.
...
Pianka attributed the furor over his lecture to a rival whom he accused of attempting to smear his reputation.
The ecologist said since the report was published, he has received abusive e-mails and death threats, including one threatening his family. I can only refer to what I posted earlier in this thread about the poisoning of political discourse in North America.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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