Message-ID: <51792E5D4B6ED011B7DB00805FBE3836040EC0D2@xch-evt-06.ca.boeing.com>
From: "Van Zant, Peter J" <Peter.VanZant@PSS.Boeing.com>
To: PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>,
        "'rcollins@netlink.com.au'" <rcollins@netlink.com.au>
Subject: RE: coercion, sterilization, culling
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 08:44:08 -0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> ----------
> From: 	rc&am[SMTP:rcollins@netlink.com.au]
> Sent: 	Monday, November 23, 1998 9:29 PM
> To: 	PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK
> Subject: 	Re: coercion, sterilization, culling
> 
> 
> 
> Ted Toal wrote:
> 
> > There is no way one can prove that we have or have not reached the point
> > of needing to use these "crisis methods."  I think all of us who are
> well-read
> > on the OP subject know that the issues of carrying capacity, maximum
> > population, optimum population, etc. have been found to be extremely
> complex,
> > intractable problems.  If they weren't, we wouldn't need to be here
> discussing
> > it.  We don't know the true limits, we don't know the optimum levels,
> and we
> > don't know what the future will bring.
> 
> true, there are indeed no firm facts that the scenarios being bandied
> about are
> probable.  also, given that the very notion of 'carrying capacity', for
> example, is
> so often used as a single and decisive variable in such scenarios - which
> it can be
> shown is not the case, even by the reckonings of those who argue that
> there is an
> overpopulation problem - it would seem that these scenarios are more
> fantasies
> (albeit dystopic ones) than probable outcomes.  the question then becomes:
> why do
> some people seem fascinated and fixated on these scenarios as akin to
> dogmas?  i
> would suggest that this is because these fantastic futures serve as
> retroactive
> alibis for an extremely authoritarian (and ultiamtely racist) politics.
> 
> 
I think the reason for the "fixation," as you call it, is that the concept
of "carrying capacity" is a valid one, although we cannot assign a fixed
number for how many people can exist in a given region without specifying
their economic level and how they choose to use their wealth. However, as
soon as we begin to talk of a concept like carrying capacity, we start to
say that somewhere there is a limit, and as soon as we do that, it sets off
peoples' panic buttons. I will use your attempt to call concern about
carrying capacity a ploy to assert authoritarian, racist politics as an
example. Angela, we all would like to have it all--and not have to work for
it, either. However, IMO, we can't all have it all, we're going to have to
accept limits on our numbers, our wealth, and even our freedom. If we're
willing to voluntarily control our numbers and wealth, we can (again IMO)
head off a lot of the restrictions on freedom.