Natural Selection

[T00ts]

We should be discouraging people from breeding, not letting millions or even billions of those currently alive to die.

Sorry folks limiting births won't happen.

[Nick]

That's about as fascist as you get. Why leave the Africans ,out? Being artificially held back does not just apply in Africa. And blaming a spotty faced 19 year old for the enormous long standing problems in Africa, is as ridiculous as blaming her for the long standing problems of inequality in our own society.
Our only claim to be the prime , and superior species on this planet is our ability to avoid your sort of recommendation for the future of our species. Yes such a remedy might imitate nature, but the human race has only been as successful as it has been by defying nature, not imitating its every nuance.

Just to comment on the Africa situation, a million children die each year through drinking dirty water with faeces in it. Almost a million women die from smoke inhalation through cooking on open fires indoors. All because the green lobby refuses to let Africa develop, and yes, a spotty herbert is front and centre of that movement. 

[srb7677]

I never mention the poor, you're the one that has just conflated weak with poor, shame on you Steve. Well very soon we're going to have to do something: when I lived in North Carolina they were building houses at a great rate of knots and chopping down huge swaths of Oak, the 20 million Whitetail Deer in the state suddenly started suffering from Chronic Wasting Disease. At what point do you think we start doing something about the population of the world then? India will overtake China in the next couple of years and we're heading towards a population of 8 billion, from 2.5 billion in 1950.

Bring on Squid Game then shall we?

We should be discouraging people from breeding, not letting millions or even billions of those currently alive to die.

[srb7677]

Yes I'll go with that as far as the last sentence. I fear what you really mean is that those rewards are somehow limited for some so that those who earn less don't feel hard done by. I am not aware of anyone who is contracted to work for nothing.

That is not accurate at all. I do not want to reduce rewards for the better off simply so that the poor can be just as poor but feel a bit better about it. How would that help them? This is a typical right wing misinterpretation of people like me. 

I want work to genuinely pay so that the poor themselves prosper through their own efforts. At the moment even with welfare top ups they get to keep too little of what they earn, most of it going to the landlord and others who are growing fat off the fruits of their labour whilst they remain skint. Working people after all are having to rely on foodbanks in increasing numbers. 


We have a broken economic model where work is ceasing to be the route to prosperity for millions. Instead the only certain route to prosperity seems to be ownership - of businesses, of shares, of properties - so that you can grow fat off the labour of others whilst most of those doing the labouring are getting ever poorer.

If this trend continues and intensifies, the work ethic is going to be fatally damaged in this country, with one group of people concluding to another group - why should we work our guts out in poverty so you can sit on your arses growing rich at our expense? An oversimplification but it's the way things are going.

[Nick]

So just let the weak, the disabled, and the poor die eh? And where would such thinking leave pensioners? As they grow old and weak should they be left to die as a drain on resources too so the rich can pay a bit less in tax?

Actually, if we had to do without anyone I would prefer it to be those with eugenicist, Nazi-style, attitudes like yours, leaving the rest of us unfettered by you in the creation of a better world, where no one capable of eating starves to death and where no one capable of being cured dies from illness or disease. Population needs to be got to grips with by encouraging less breeding, not by just letting people die.

Your own personal malice and contempt towards those less fortunate than you here is verging upon the murderous. If we ever set up extermination camps for the poor, you'd make the ideal camp commandant.

There is a thread somewhere about the moral underpinnings of our politics. Maybe you should go there and lob this little grenade in,

I never mention the poor, you're the one that has just conflated weak with poor, shame on you Steve. Well very soon we're going to have to do something: when I lived in North Carolina they were building houses at a great rate of knots and chopping down huge swaths of Oak, the 20 million Whitetail Deer in the state suddenly started suffering from Chronic Wasting Disease. At what point do you think we start doing something about the population of the world then? India will overtake China in the next couple of years and we're heading towards a population of 8 billion, from 2.5 billion in 1950. 

Bring on Squid Game then shall we?

[Nick]

Sentiments like this are in my view projected by people who do not view themselves as "weak" because they fail to recognise that it is society that makes them seem strong.

Wanting 'nature to take its course' invites anarchy, and the people in current society that feel "strong" may not be comfortable when the "weak" are breaking down their doors.

No sentiments, just statements and question. 

[T00ts]

To press your analogy a bit further, give them fish to eat whilst teaching them to fish so that we support them until they are ready and able to support themselves. Then make sure that the envoronment they are living in has plenty of fish in it.

In other words help those who help themselves if they can, and make that help conditional upon them doing so. But at the same time model an economy where their own efforts are rewarded.

Yes I'll go with that as far as the last sentence. I fear what you really mean is that those rewards are somehow limited for some so that those who earn less don't feel hard done by. I am not aware of anyone who is contracted to work for nothing.

[srb7677]

I don't think it so strange. Decent humanity helps those unable  -  the difference is the method used. It follows the fishing argument. Teach and they can feed themselves for ever or feed and they sit and wait.

To press your analogy a bit further, give them fish to eat whilst teaching them to fish so that we support them until they are ready and able to support themselves. Then make sure that the envoronment they are living in has plenty of fish in it.

In other words help those who help themselves if they can, and make that help conditional upon them doing so. But at the same time model an economy where their own efforts are rewarded.

[Good old]

Throughout the whole of the natural world the weak don't make it. From the Cuckoo invading the Warblers nest to the runt of a litter expiring due to malnutrition.
Why do we not just accept this within our society, stop worrying about them and just let them go. I wouldn't apply this to African nations because they are being artificially held back by developed nation and a certain spotty faced 19 year old.

Everywhere there are fallers, some that don't make the grade, why not let nature take it course and stop keeping them on life support. The planet can't sustain it any longer.

That's about as fascist as you get. Why leave the Africans ,out? Being artificially held back does not just apply in Africa. And blaming a spotty faced 19 year old for the enormous long standing problems in Africa, is as ridiculous as blaming her for the long standing problems of inequality in our own society.
Our only claim to be the prime , and superior species on this planet is our ability to avoid your sort of recommendation for the future of our species. Yes such a remedy might imitate nature, but the human race has only been as successful as it has been by defying nature, not imitating its every nuance.

[T00ts]

We come from opposite sides of the spectrum but I broadly agree. Those who are able to help themselves should do so, though we need a society and economy that makes that much more feasible for everyone, a society in which hard work always pays, not just for a wealthy few but for everyone. We need to get back to a society where work is the route to prosperity, not leeching off those who work.

I note with curiosity that whilst driven by completely different things - your Christianity and my socialism - these things appear to have compelled us onto similar terrain in our recognition of the need to help those less fortunate than themselves.

I don't think it so strange. Decent humanity helps those unable  -  the difference is the method used. It follows the fishing argument. Teach and they can feed themselves for ever or feed and they sit and wait.

[Nalaar]

why not let nature take it course

Sentiments like this are in my view projected by people who do not view themselves as "weak" because they fail to recognise that it is society that makes them seem strong.

Wanting 'nature to take its course' invites anarchy, and the people in current society that feel "strong" may not be comfortable when the "weak" are breaking down their doors.

[srb7677]

Because we are supposed to be of a higher degree than the animal world. We already have those who don't make it. I have a grandson who was such. Care for others is supposed to be about the most important thing we can do even to the point that we go without ourselves. Having said all that of course we also have a duty to be as self reliant as we can and not leach from others just because we can. But those who have nothing and that includes health, ability and strength should benefit from the strong and able.

We come from opposite sides of the spectrum but I broadly agree. Those who are able to help themselves should do so, though we need a society and economy that makes that much more feasible for everyone, a society in which hard work always pays, not just for a wealthy few but for everyone. We need to get back to a society where work is the route to prosperity, not leeching off those who work.

I note with curiosity that whilst driven by completely different things - your Christianity and my socialism - these things appear to have compelled us onto similar terrain in our recognition of the need to help those less fortunate than themselves.

[Borchester]

Because we are supposed to be of a higher degree than the animal world. We already have those who don't make it. I have a grandson who was such. Care for others is supposed to be about the most important thing we can do even to the point that we go without ourselves. Having said all that of course we also have a duty to be as self reliant as we can and not leach from others just because we can. But those who have nothing and that includes health, ability and strength should benefit from the strong and able.

All true Toots and condolences on your grandson.

The one rule is that big chaps look after little chaps, regardless of gender or anything else.

Of course, that does not stop the little chaps from being sniveling wastes of space, but that is the way the game is played.

[T00ts]

Throughout the whole of the natural world the weak don't make it. From the Cuckoo invading the Warblers nest to the runt of a litter expiring due to malnutrition.
Why do we not just accept this within our society, stop worrying about them and just let them go. I wouldn't apply this to African nations because they are being artificially held back by developed nation and a certain spotty faced 19 year old.

Everywhere there are fallers, some that don't make the grade, why not let nature take it course and stop keeping them on life support. The planet can't sustain it any longer.

Because we are supposed to be of a higher degree than the animal world. We already have those who don't make it. I have a grandson who was such. Care for others is supposed to be about the most important thing we can do even to the point that we go without ourselves. Having said all that of course we also have a duty to be as self reliant as we can and not leach from others just because we can. But those who have nothing and that includes health, ability and strength should benefit from the strong and able.

[srb7677]

Throughout the whole of the natural world the weak don't make it. From the Cuckoo invading the Warblers nest to the runt of a litter expiring due to malnutrition.
Why do we not just accept this within our society, stop worrying about them and just let them go. I wouldn't apply this to African nations because they are being artificially held back by developed nation and a certain spotty faced 19 year old.

Everywhere there are fallers, some that don't make the grade, why not let nature take it course and stop keeping them on life support. The planet can't sustain it any longer.

So just let the weak, the disabled, and the poor die eh? And where would such thinking leave pensioners? As they grow old and weak should they be left to die as a drain on resources too so the rich can pay a bit less in tax?

Actually, if we had to do without anyone I would prefer it to be those with eugenicist, Nazi-style, attitudes like yours, leaving the rest of us unfettered by you in the creation of a better world, where no one capable of eating starves to death and where no one capable of being cured dies from illness or disease. Population needs to be got to grips with by encouraging less breeding, not by just letting people die.

Your own personal malice and contempt towards those less fortunate than you here is verging upon the murderous. If we ever set up extermination camps for the poor, you'd make the ideal camp commandant. 

There is a thread somewhere about the moral underpinnings of our politics. Maybe you should go there and lob this little grenade in,