The demise of Men?

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If the Food Bank is sponsored by government then guess what, everyone that pays taxes is already contributing. Furthermore, I didn't say "all the money", I said "very little of the money". You're taking my argument and making it into an extreme in order to make yours more tangible. Also, an organization can have a million volunteers to get the work done. It isn't just workers that cost money, you know.

Might I ask, how would they grow fresh and healthy food free of GM, preservatives, for everyone in the current climate of things? And how would this be achieved? Don't forget, there are a lot of regulations and taxes on farmers now in Western nations. The farming industry is all but crippled. Demand or no demand this is the current state of affairs.

About what people spend their money on, they spend their earned money on what they like. It's their money, they earned it. It's up to them. You can't force a consumer to buy certain products. It is why competition, and alternative products to every product exist. When you tell and make people buy X thing, they are no longer consumers in the sense that you know them but slaves to a new type of economic system. And here's the other ticker, since you believe in sharing out wealth, people on welfare also have in a sense "earned" their right to the cash they have and thus they also have the same freedom of choice with consumer products. Go figure.

Lastly, about demand. We can control demand by perpetuating supply. But this is something charity alone can never accomplish because it still relies on the scarce supply and resources we have. This is why in 50 years time unless things change you will still be getting those pamphlets about saving the 3 legged dogs or mutant babies in Fukushima or missionary projects to bring water to the fish in the ocean.

EDIT: To the person that made a serious response to my human depopulation remark, it was a joke based on some of the comments (no names mentioned) being made on this discussion. I'm no eugenicist. Though I do have to agree having more children which seems to be a common strategy in poorer nations simply doesn't work, it's a vicious cycle.

Wow I almost forgot what the original topic was about.
Perhaps sex might end up no longer being part of our functionality in later stages of mankind..
Ever see Demolition Man?

One of the perks of living in a socialist country. Not that I plan on needing any of those fall backs.



First off, I never quite did that. I strongly believe that you are arguing an opponent that isn't me, but you're directing your posts this way. Why?



I didn't comment on economics either. See the above. All I've said is that there seem to be plenty of people who aren't having problems in today's rapidly-evolving technological world. Of course it'll suck for us too if the rest of society collapses cause they don't have what it takes to adapt. Let's make sure you understand your opponent's stance before you go assuming them for him, please.

That said...since when was this a NZ-only thing? The entire world is having a real estate market crash, and NZ is hardly experiencing the worst of it, despite two major earthquakes.

The world doesnt have what it takes to adapt. When that man stood up and shot 12 people, people who were asked "what do you think happened?" all they did was describe what happened. they didn't reply with what was really going on "I think that TBTB is probably setting up a terrorist state faster than expected!" That shooting took place in a DARK KNIGHT RISES FILM. This is getting nuttier and nuttier.

Toyota: Driving us Forward
Growth, progress, Change

Don't you see it? It's all coming together now.

...Do you listen to yourself talk?

No, really, do you listen to yourself talk?

News flash - tragic and random acts of pointless violence happen on Earth. Those who commit them usually think it's a good idea at the time for any number of reasons, and perhaps soon we'll know why this gunman made his assault (after all, he surrendered without a fight and is now in police custody, which suggests that he intended to get a message out). But this 'terrorist state' theory is so absurd that I, as an enthusiast of various conspiracies and historical mysteries, actually feel insulted.

Look up some confirmed conspiracies sometime - the P2 banking conspiracy in Italy, for example, or the Iran-Contra incident, among others - and look for what they have in common. Conspiracies of any stripe require money to fund them. They need masterminds, employees, and agents. They require an ability to accurately keep records of their expenditures and, in the cases of militaristic conspiracies, inventory. They leave behind evidence of their passing in the form of bank records, purchases, payrolls, and bribes - and the larger the conspiracy gets, the harder it is to keep it a secret. Past a certain size limit, keeping anything wholly secret is completely and utterly impossible by even the most subtle of minds - and the mind does get remarkably subtle.

Moving beyond this, most conspiracies have a goal. Despite the popular trend to think this goal tends to be control, most conspiracies are actually after money. Political conspiracies are normally the hardest to execute, the easiest to screw up, and the most difficult to keep someone from blabbing because of a guilty conscience. Obviously we can dismiss a monetary motivation for this action (unless you think the gunman runs the local funeral home, perhaps) but what would someone gain either politically or socially from this? They didn't eliminate any big-name rivals (or such worthies would have been in the press release), so it's not a simple assassination. One could make the argument that they're trying to manipulate the town in which the shooting took place, but that doesn't hold much water either - it's a small and less-than-significant town in Colorado that's already been plagued by tragedy as it is. Any change they hope to effect through murder should have already happened. It made national news, certainly - but so does a lot of things, and this body count isn't anything special in plenty of major cities. Hell, it's not even a Wednesday in New York City. It doesn't give a foothold for a group outside the nation to enter within it, and as far as Homeland Security goes, that agency already enjoys unparalleled freedom of action.

So we've established so far that this doesn't generate money, panic, abnormal levels of outrage or political opportunity. One could attempt to make the argument that it's a small movement in a larger trend of such attacks, but that trend has not manifested - if someone was funding random assaults on American citizens in order to create unrest or outrage those attacks would be closer together (and, to give credit to the kind of mind that would think of this, probably much more lethal). Our nation is huge, so any attempt to effect widespread panic or change through violence would have to strike many places, almost all at the same time, in order to really have an effect beyond the strictly local. Attempting a 'slow burn' approach wouldn't work, and any organization large and old enough to think of that kind of plan would also have more than enough information to recognize that fact and not throw their money away experimenting with it.

What possible motivation, then, is left for a hypothetical organization founding such an assault? None. The idea is incoherent insanity.

...because popular media is soooo good at accurately representing how people think, feel, and act, as opposed to just rehashing stereotypes. (/sarcasm)

His experience isn't invalid just because he's from a different country than most of us.

When people (women) are provided with birth control and the education to use it, they will almost always choose to have smaller families (Duggar/octomom-like individuals being a rare but persistent exception) *if* they are confident that their children will survive to adulthood.

You may want to take a more realistic view of world history.

A requirement for industrialisation is the shift in power from rural to urban, this has only ever been achieved in two ways:

1) Use the market to drive down the cost of food so much that small farmers who are forced into the cities to look for work in factories.
2) Go full on Stalin style totalitarianism and forcibly relocate millions of people.

The Us & Europe to a slightly lesser extent flooded the world market with cheap food, decimating undeveloped economies, some reacted well by industrialising and others (most of Africa) collapsed into wars and civil wars. When the US gives food aid it is almost always getting something it wants in return like opening up markets to US goods, natural resources or cheap labour.

Worth noting that while this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14417545

Massive drought and starvation was happening in Kenya last year, UK supermarkets were still importing organic roses out of season from Kenya grown on the most fertile land in Kenya.

You can't level the blame for wrecked economies solely at exploding populations when we bear so much responsibility for destroying the stable (ish) agricultural societies in the first place and then demanding all the best resources at dirt cheap prices to rescue them from the problem we largely created...

Moreover, people in a lot of poor countries have no social security, no pensions, nothing but family members to support each other. Hence, the incentive is to produce as many children as possible, so that they will support you in your old age.