More on Texas genocide advocate

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More on Texas genocide advocate

Postby Dreams End » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:29 pm

This was linked of Dave McGowan's most recent newsletter:<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr81.html">davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr81.html</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Let me warn you that the LEAST scary thing in McGowan's current post is this image:<br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://davesweb.cnchost.com/McCain&Bush.jpeg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>So you can imagine what the rest is like. <br><br>And while we've had a post about Pianka and his call to wipe out up to 90% of the population of the earth. I don't think this particular article was posted though. Twelve Monkeys indeed.<br><br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Recently citizen scientist Forrest Mims told me about a speech he heard at the Texas Academy of Science during which the speaker, a world-renowned ecologist, advocated for the extermination of 90 percent of the human species in a most horrible and painful manner. Apparently at the speaker's direction, the speech was not video taped by the Academy and so Forrest's may be the only record of what was said. Forrest's account of what he witnessed chilled my soul. Astonishingly, Forrest reports that many of the Academy members present gave the speaker a standing ovation. To date, the Academy has not moved to sanction the speaker or distance itself from the speaker's remarks.<br><br>If the professional community has lost its sense of moral outrage when one if their own openly calls for the slow and painful extermination of over 5 billion human beings, then it falls upon the amateur community to be the conscience of science.<br><br>Forrest, who is a member of the Texas Academy and chairs its Environmental Science Section, told me he would be unable to describe the speech in The Citizen Scientist because he has protested the speech to the Academy and he serves as Editor of The Citizen Scientist. Therefore, to preclude a possible conflict of interest, I have directed Forrest to describe what he observed and his reactions in this special feature, for which I have served as editor and which is being released a week ahead of our normal publication schedule. Comments may be sent to Backscatter.<br><br>Shawn Carlson, Ph.D.,<br>MacArthur Fellow,<br>Founder and Executive Director,<br>Society for Amateur Scientists<br><br>Special Editorial: Dealing with Doctor Doom<br>Shawn Carlson, Ph.D.<br><br>Meeting Doctor Doom<br><br>Forrest M. Mims III<br>Copyright 2006 by Forrest M. Mims III.<br><br> There is always something special about science meetings. The 109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in Beaumont on 3-5 March 2006 was especially exciting for me, because a student and his professor presented the results of a DNA study I suggested to them last year. How fulfilling to see the baldcypress ( Taxodium distichum ) leaves we collected last summer and my tree ring photographs transformed into a first class scientific presentation that's nearly ready to submit to a scientific journal (Brian Iken and Dr. Deanna McCullough, "Bald Cypress of the Texas Hill Country: Taxonomically Unique?" 109th Meeting of the Texas Academy of Science Program and Abstracts [ PDF ], Poster P59, p. 84, 2006).<br><br>But there was a gravely disturbing side to that otherwise scientifically significant meeting, for I watched in amazement as a few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population by airborne Ebola. The speech was given by Dr. Eric R. Pianka (Fig. 1), the University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert who the Academy named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.<br><br>Something curious occurred a minute before Pianka began speaking. An official of the Academy approached a video camera operator at the front of the auditorium and engaged him in animated conversation. The camera operator did not look pleased as he pointed the lens of the big camera to the ceiling and slowly walked away.<br><br>This curious incident came to mind a few minutes later when Professor Pianka began his speech by explaining that the general public is not yet ready to hear what he was about to tell us. Because of many years of experience as a writer and editor, Pianka's strange introduction and the TV camera incident raised a red flag in my mind. Suddenly I forgot that I was a member of the Texas Academy of Science and chairman of its Environmental Science Section. Instead, I grabbed a notepad so I could take on the role of science reporter.<br><br>One of Pianka's earliest points was a condemnation of anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, “What good are you?”<br><br>Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, “We're no better than bacteria!”<br><br>Pianka then began laying out his concerns about how human overpopulation is ruining the Earth. He presented a doomsday scenario in which he claimed that the sharp increase in human population since the beginning of the industrial age is devastating the planet. He warned that quick steps must be taken to restore the planet before it's too late.<br><br>Saving the Earth with Ebola<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.<br><br>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.<br><br>After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, “We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that.”<br><br>With his slide of human skulls towering on the screen behind him, Professor Pianka was deadly serious. The audience that had been applauding some of his statements now sat silent.<br><br>After a dramatic pause, Pianka returned to politics and environmentalism. But he revisited his call for mass death when he reflected on the oil situation.<br><br>“And the fossil fuels are running out,” he said, “so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.” So the oil crisis alone may require eliminating two-third's of the world's population.<br><br>How soon must the mass dying begin if Earth is to be saved? Apparently fairly soon, for Pianka suggested he might be around when the killer disease goes to work. He was born in 1939, and his lengthy obituary appears on his web site.<br><br>When Pianka finished his remarks, the audience applauded. It wasn't merely a smattering of polite clapping that audiences diplomatically reserve for poor or boring speakers. It was a loud, vigorous and enthusiastic applause.<br><br>Questions for Dr. Doom<br><br>Then came the question and answer session, in which Professor Pianka stated that other diseases are also efficient killers.<br><br>The audience laughed when he said, “You know, the bird flu's good, too.” They laughed again when he proposed, with a discernable note of glee in his voice that, “We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth.”<br><br>After noting that the audience did not represent the general population, a questioner asked, "What kind of reception have you received as you have presented these ideas to other audiences that are not representative of us?"<br><br>Pianka replied, "I speak to the converted!"<br><br>Pianka responded to more questions by condemning politicians in general and Al Gore by name, because they do not address the population problem and "...because they deceive the public in every way they can to stay in power."<br><br>He spoke glowingly of the police state in China that enforces their one-child policy. He said, "Smarter people have fewer kids." He said those who don't have a conscience about the Earth will inherit the Earth, "...because those who care make fewer babies and those that didn't care made more babies." He said we will evolve as uncaring people, and "I think IQs are falling for the same reason, too."<br><br>With this, the questioning was over. Immediately almost every scientist, professor and college student present stood to their feet and vigorously applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed the elimination of 90 percent of the human population. Some even cheered. Dozens then mobbed the professor at the lectern to extend greetings and ask questions. It was necessary to wait a while before I could get close enough to take some photographs (Fig. 1).<br><br>I was assigned to judge a paper in a grad student competition after the speech. On the way, three professors dismissed Pianka as a crank. While waiting to enter the competition room, a group of a dozen Lamar University students expressed outrage over the Pianka speech.<br><br>Yet five hours later, the distinguished leaders of the Texas Academy of Science presented Pianka with a plaque in recognition of his being named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist. When the banquet hall filled with more than 400 people responded with enthusiastic applause, I walked out in protest.<br><br>Corresponding with Dr. Doom<br><br>Recently I exchanged a number of e-mails with Pianka. I pointed out to him that one might infer his death wish was really aimed at Africans, for Ebola is found only in Central Africa. He replied that Ebola does not discriminate, kills everyone and could spread to Europe and the the Americas by a single infected airplane passenger.<br><br>In his last e-mail, Pianka wrote that I completely fail to understand his arguments. So I did a check and found verification of my interpretation of his remarks on his own web site. In a student evaluation of a 2004 course he taught, one of Professor Pianka's students wrote, "Though I agree that convervation [sic] biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90% of the human population should die of ebola [sic] is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness." (Go here and scroll down to just before the Fall 2005 evaluation section near the end.)<br><br>Yet the majority of his student reviews were favorable, with one even saying, “ I worship Dr. Pianka.”<br><br>The 45-minute lecture before the Texas Academy of Science converted a university biology senior into a Pianka disciple, who then published a blog that seriously supports Pianka's mass death wish.<br><br>Dangerous Times<br><br>Let me now remove my reporter's hat for a moment and tell you what I think. We live in dangerous times. The national security of many countries is at risk. Science has become tainted by highly publicized cases of misconduct and fraud.<br><br>Must now we worry that a Pianka-worshipping former student might someday become a professional biologist or physician with access to the most deadly strains of viruses and bacteria? I believe that airborne Ebola is unlikely to threaten the world outside of Central Africa. But scientists have regenerated the 1918 Spanish flu virus that killed 50 million people. There is concern that small pox might someday return. And what other terrible plagues are waiting out there in the natural world to cross the species barrier and to which scientists will one day have access?<br><br>Meanwhile, I still can't get out of my mind the pleasant spring day in Texas when a few hundred scientists of the Texas Academy of Science gave a standing ovation for a speaker who they heard advocate for the slow and torturous death of over five billion human beings. <br><br>Forrest M. Mims III is Chairman of the Environmental Science Section of the Texas Academy of Science, and the editor of The Citizen Scientist. He and his science are featured online at www.forrestmims.org and www.sunandsky.org. The views expressed herein are his own and do not represent the official views of the Texas Academy of Science or the Society for Amateur Scientists. <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html">www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/feature1p/index.html</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr81.html">davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr81.html</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Laughing his cock off.

Postby slimmouse » Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:15 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>With this, the questioning was over. Immediately almost every scientist, professor and college student present stood to their feet and vigorously applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed the elimination of 90 percent of the human population.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br> I bet the guy musta been laughing his cock off at this.<br> These people have obviously got their free-from-extermination-passes.<br><br> This sounds like something from a dark Sci fi movie.<br><br> Heres something from my rose tinted spectacles bright scifi movie. This aint gonna happen <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Laughing his cock off.

Postby StarmanSkye » Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:01 am

"Heres something from my rose tinted spectacles bright scifi movie. This aint gonna happen "<br><br>Sorry, I wish I could but I can't take any comfort in that prediction -- After all, how many millions of people thought the Holocaust could never happen -- even if someone had mentioned it as a possibility back in 1939. Most people when they saw the jack-booted thugs in the streets knocking-heads and breaking windows and making midnite 'arrests' said, 'Oh, it'll settle back down, the craziness will subside and things will return to normal.' <br><br>Thy refused to see what possibilities were festering in the minds of the biggest power-mad idealogues, those who promoted war as a panacea for peace and justice and security -- much as we can see today, even.<br><br>The REAL chilling thing about this report is that there were apparently hundreds of well-educated, middle-class scientists who weren't revulsed by this idea, but actually praised it.<br><br>What this marks to me is a phenomenal lack of imagination and perspective -- as if there were only 2 options here -- increasing population-pressures in the face of declining resources and degradation of the environment leading to catastrophe, OR a mass-die-off to reduce numbers to an arbitrarily-sustainable level of indulgent affluence and wasteful inefficiency.<br><br>What's astonishing to me is that among this group and his supporters, anyway, there's no evidence of challenging these assumptions, no willingness to consider less-extreme possibilities for solving issues of sustainablity and improvement of living standards, especially for the developing world (since improvements in living standards contributes to declining birth-rates)-- or to challenge the dominant paradigm that has sabotaged third-world development and limited their options for self-reliance, managed growth, long-term management of their resources for their society's greatest good -- and facilitated the unequal north's exploitation of the south to perpetuate the bloated, inefficient, indulgent excesses that make the American 'ideal' a wildly exorbitant, unsustainable model for a modern society.<br><br>Where's the moral outrage or sense of perspective that SHOULD be part of a diligent, inquiring mind -- such that, wouldn't it be better to fairly distribute the earth's bounty and enable a modest but comfortable, secure society for all than enable elites to appropriate a disproportionate share to build an impractical, limited (and flawed) exclusive utopia for a small number?<br><br>Talk about disempowerment. This attitude seems a product of thinking of people only in terms of their utilitarian 'value' or in the abstract -- there's the same kind of dismissal of people's inherant 'humanity' that allowed the mechanism of state to condone genocide of millions of those less-powerful under Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, and only slightly lesser-numbers under modern 'civilized' states.<br><br>After all, nuclear proliferation and pre-emptive 'first-strike' doctrines, 'approved' foodstuff and medicine poisons, state-sanctioned brutality and torture, chemical-warfare under the euphemisms of DU and Agent Orange and Plan Columbia, and the warfare-state economy are all 'modern' innovations.<br><br>Damn scary times just for the potential of power-obsessed zealots to repeat past horrors with bigger deliberate (or semi-accidental) catastrophes -- while 'natural' disasters aren't as apallingly horrid to contemplate given their equal-opportunity status we can't do much to alter.<br><br>Starman<br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Laughing his cock off.

Postby robertdreed » Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:52 am

Good Lord, I thought that was an April Fool's joke. <br><br>Apparently, I wasn't the only one <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=pianka+%22april+fools%22&sm=Yahoo%21+Search&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8">search.yahoo.com/search?p...=&ei=UTF-8</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Absurdly out of context.

Postby DBtv » Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:00 am

The speech was an about what could happen in an epidemiological disater, the dude was not calling for extermination. <br><br>That is not dismiss the elite's plans for mass population reduction, but this poor academic schmuck is not one of the elite henchmen.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Pianka

Postby robertdreed » Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:18 am

He has an interesting style, both in terms of lecture and life.<br><br>Lecture <br><br>This is a second-hand review of his lecture. It would be better to have the transcript to review, to check the accuracy and context of the quotes:<br><br>"...One of Pianka's earliest points was a condemnation of anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, “What good are you?”<br><br>Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, “We're no better than bacteria!”<br><br>Pianka then began laying out his concerns about how human overpopulation is ruining the Earth. He presented a doomsday scenario in which he claimed that the sharp increase in human population since the beginning of the industrial age is devastating the planet. He warned that quick steps must be taken to restore the planet before it's too late.<br><br>Saving the Earth with Ebola<br><br>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.<br><br>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.<br><br>After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, “We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that.”<br><br>With his slide of human skulls towering on the screen behind him, Professor Pianka was deadly serious. The audience that had been applauding some of his statements now sat silent.<br><br>After a dramatic pause, Pianka returned to politics and environmentalism. But he revisited his call for mass death when he reflected on the oil situation.<br><br>“And the fossil fuels are running out,” he said, “so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.” So the oil crisis alone may require eliminating two-third's of the world's population..."<br><br>Life<br><br> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Evaranus/obit.html">uts.cc.utexas.edu/%7Evaranus/obit.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 4/15/06 1:22 am<br></i>
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Re: Pianka

Postby Dreams End » Sat Apr 15, 2006 10:33 am

DBtv, he's quite clear.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>“And the fossil fuels are running out,” he said, “so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.” <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><br>You are simply wrong about that. He hasn't actually said let's go release the virus ourselves, but he said everything but.<br><br>And, for those keeping score, there's that number: 2 billion, again. That's the number all sorts of folks like Pimental, various Peak Oilers and evidently at least one lizardologist think we need to hit. What is it about that number? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Pianka

Postby Qutb » Sat Apr 15, 2006 12:06 pm

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"2 billion ... What is it about that number?"</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br>It's the number of white people in the world? Just a guess. Actually, I don't think there's more than about a billion white people in the world, so some none-whites must also be deemed worthy of survival.<br><br>It's interesting (if that's the right word) how certain radical environmentalists esposue an ideology that is virtually indistinguishable from hard core Nazism. That's not just "fake" environmentalists who've infiltrated environmentalist movements either. I think this guy's rejection of "anthropocentrism" is quite typical. There's a legitimate point in that perhaps, but some, like this guy, take it to the point where individual human beings aren't granted any value whatsoever. <p></p><i></i>
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Pick a number, any number

Postby Avalon » Sat Apr 15, 2006 12:08 pm

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>And, for those keeping score, there's that number: 2 billion, again. That's the number all sorts of folks like Pimental, various Peak Oilers and evidently at least one lizardologist think we need to hit. What is it about that number?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>It lets them look twice as sane as someone suggesting that the population should be winnowed down to 1 billion?<br><br>Or maybe since the number is already in circulation, and you don't have to justify to anyone how you can scientifically come up with that figure, it gives you instant allies who are happy you agree with their made-up number. And eventually uncritical articles will then say, "Many scientists think two billion..."<br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Caldwell's Minimal Regret Omega Project

Postby Gouda » Sat Apr 15, 2006 12:48 pm

2 billion, bah, that's limited hang-out. That is, compared to Mr. Joseph George Caldwell's desired numbers. Maybe he has been discussed here before, but I thought I'd just briefly copy some of his ideas because he sees Pianka and Pimenthal and Heinberg's numbers and raises them (err, I mean lowers them) substantially. Caldwell runs this <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.foundationwebsite.org/">Foundation</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> website and fronts a synarchist 'Planetary Management Institute' which champions an <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Omega Project </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->that seeks a "minimal regret population" of...<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>10 million</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. He ain't tip-toe'ing like the 2 billioners. <br><br>The Mission:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The mission of the Planetary Management Institute is to work for the establishment of a minimal-regret global population consisting of a single high-technology nation of five million and a globally distributed hunter-gatherer population of five million. It will accomplish its mission by a program of education.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> Here's how his synarchist plan works:<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.foundationwebsite.org/OnPopulationControl.htm">www.foundationwebsite.org/OnPopulationControl.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The system of government, or planetary management, that I have proposed may be described either as a “Platonic” government (along the lines that Plato described in The Republic) or a “synarchic” government (along the lines described by the spiritualist, Saint-Yves d’Alveydre). Plato calls the government rulers the “Guardians,” and Saint-Yves calls them “Enlightened Initiates.” An issue that was not addressed very satisfactorily by either of these writers is the issue of movement of the population between classes, i.e., how may a person become a Guardian (i.e., move from the “ruled” population to the Guardian class) or become an Enlightened Initiate…<br><br>Since the synarchic government is in charge of the planet, it may address the issues of class movement and population control any (effective) way it pleases... <br><br>For the issue of movement from the planetary management organization to the hunter-gatherer society, there are two mechanisms suggested. First, anyone wishing to leave the high-technology society and go to the hunter-gatherer society may do so. Second, anyone convicted of a serious crime will be exiled (banished) to the hunter-gatherer society. This is the same procedure used in the past, when Earth was less densely populated (e.g., in recent times, the exile of convicts from England to Australia). This procedure obviates the need for prisons and for the death penalty….(Gouda's note: to see what that looks like, See the film <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Code 46</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, by Michael Winterbottom)…<br><br>As the discussion above suggests, the task of suppressing industrial development globally is daunting. It is very difficult to achieve this by force. It is believed that a much more fruitful approach to this problem is to convince all humanity of the very strong desirability of restricting industrial development. As Neale Donald Walsch (The New Revelations) expressed it, “action follows belief.” Once humanity accepts that large-scale industrial development is destroying the biosphere, and once it experiences the global catastrophe that global industrialization causes, it will be profoundly motivated to prevent it from happening again….<br><br>At that time, they will be very receptive to the establishment of a New World Order based on Platonic / synarchic government of a minimal-regret population. It is at that point that a great awakening to a new spiritual awareness will occur, and the dawn of a New Age – the Aquarian Age – will have occurred.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> His thoughts on the useful but misguided Richard Heinberg, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>The Party's Over</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, and a whole lot more: <br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.foundationwebsite.org/OnHeinberg.htm">www.foundationwebsite.org/OnHeinberg.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I just finished reading Richard Heinberg’s book, The Party’s Over (New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC Canada, http://www.newsociety.com 2003). This book provides an excellent description of the energy situation on present-day Earth…While I do not agree with Heinberg’s approach to dealing with the decline of oil, or with his predictions of what the social and political outcomes of this decline will be, his book will likely perform a useful service in making the general public more aware of the nature and imminence of the end of the petroleum age and the industrial age.<br><br>Heinberg writes: “A cursory scanning of population / resource data would suggest that virtually every nation on Earth has overshot its carrying capacity. This being the case, what should be the target size of national populations? The answer obviously varies from country to country. Globally, according to Hopfenberg and Pimentel, ‘if all people are to be fed adequately and equitably, we must have a gradual transition to a global population of 2 billion. A population policy ensuring that each couple produces an average of only 1.5 children would be necessary. If this were implemented, more than 100 years would be required to make the adjustment.’”<br><br>Such statements are of no value whatsoever. The UN and World Bank project that, even if the so-called “demographic transition” takes place and birth rates mysteriously fall to less-than-replacement levels immediately, the world population will still soar to nine billion, simply because of population “momentum” (the tendency of populations to increase even when birth rates fall to below-replacement levels, because of the fact that many people have not yet had a chance to breed). The only people who have below-replacement birth rates are those who live in fabulously wealthy countries, i.e., those countries with extremely high energy consumption per capita. And it is those fabulously wealthy countries that are causing the most damage to the biosphere. People in poor countries do not want 1.5 children per couple. And most of the world consists of poor countries and will continue to consist of poor countries…<br><br>The Omega Project is working toward a day when a synarchic world government will manage a minimal-regret population of ten million people. That is a solution to the world’s current crisis. It is the only candidate solution presently “on the table” that assures a complete halt to the destruction of the biosphere, a complete halt to the mass species extinction, and the opportunity for all human beings on the planet to exercise a very high level of freedom and to develop spiritually…<br><br>Who, then, is in favor of rational planetary management, of a world of peace and sanity? It is those who place harmony with man and nature above materialism, who seek spiritualism over material possessions. It is those who would free mankind from the bonds of economic slavery. They are the world’s environmentalists, its spiritualists, its “New Agers.”<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> The rest of his website offers essays with familiar themes, such as: <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>A charge of treason against the President of the United States</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Miscellany15: Was America Destroyed by the Jews?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Miscellany16: The Last Days of the United States</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Caldwell's Minimal Regret Omega Project

Postby Gouda » Sat Apr 15, 2006 12:51 pm

Oh yes, and he is in the 911 MIHOP camp, I believe...not had time to read through his whole site. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Caldwell's Minimal Regret Omega Project

Postby Dreams End » Sat Apr 15, 2006 1:58 pm

Just freakin' weird. I'll head to the site and do wonder HOW we get to 10 million. By the way, in the original article I posted, he ALSO says we have to reduce by 90%, which would get us down to 600 million, another number I've seen from, I think, Pimental. <p></p><i></i>
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the death worshippers

Postby mother » Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:34 pm

Precursors to Antichrist. <p></p><i></i>
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A few thoughts

Postby Avalon » Sat Apr 15, 2006 3:40 pm

This is not as simple as some are making it out to be, and a lot of it may hinge on whether statements made by Pianka are misquoted or taken out of context. At the end of this posting I do have links to some comparisons of transcript and reported quotes.<br><br>Prison Planet has some useful links to get started.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2006/060406fbivisit.htm">www.prisonplanet.com/arti...ivisit.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Shawn Carlson, Ph.D. (MacArthur Fellow, Founder and Executive Director of the Society for Amateur Scientists)<br>in his editorial "Dealing with Doctor Doom," poses two questions: <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Do academic institutions like the Texas Academy of Science have a duty to provide Professor Pianka a forum to advance these ideas? And what might the consequences be of allowing him to do so?"</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> He discusses whether Pianka's "political rants" are legitimately covered by academic freedom issues. (I think Carlson is way out of line offering his depression diagnosis, FWIW). Carlson gives contact information for those who wish to respond to Pianka's speech.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIssues_2006/2006-04-07/editorial-p/index.html">www.sas.org/tcs/weeklyIss...index.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>There are some quotes linked from the "Serenity" blog (which has evidently been taken down), belonging to Brenna McConnell, a student who supports Pianka.<br><br>Dead link to Serenity blog:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://brenmccnnll.blogspot.com/2006/03/dr.html">brenmccnnll.blogspot.com/2006/03/dr.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Blogs which responded to the Serenity blog while it was still up:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.blogpulse.com/conversation?link=http://brenmccnnll.blogspot.com%2F2006%2F03%2Fdr.html">www.blogpulse.com/convers...%2Fdr.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>The Panda's Thumb seems to have the fullest cache of McConnell's take on Pianka:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/04/the_seguin_gaze.html">www.pandasthumb.org/archi..._gaze.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>In the Seguin<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Gazette-Enterprise</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, Jamie Mobley<br>reports, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Joining the crusade, James Pitts, who recieved a Ph.D. in physics from UT-Austin, became the second to publicly chastise Pianka when he filed a complaint Saturday with the UT board of regents. He insists a state university is no place to disseminate such views. He writes:<br><br>“Pianka’s message does not fall within the realm of his professional competence as a biologist, because it is a normative claim, not a descriptive one. Pianka is encouraged to use his ecological expertise to predict the likely consequences of certain technological and reproductive strategies, but to evaluate some as good, bad, or worthy of prevention by genocide is the realm of philosophy or political science, not science. His message falls no more within his professional competence than it would for a physicist to teach religion in class or a musician to encourage racism.”</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://seguingazette.com/story.lasso?ewcd=751d52c8fcce3017">seguingazette.com/story.l...c8fcce3017</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>On Pianka's own website, he chooses to give this quote a page of its own:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Man and His Gods <br><br>Homer Smith (1952) and Balfour <br><br>"Man did not have forever to harness the forces of the sun and stars. The Sun was an elderly light, long past the turbulent heat of youth, and would some day join the senile class of once-luminiferous bodies. In some incredibly remote time a chance collision might blow it up again into incandescent gas and start a new local cosmic cycle, but of man there would be no trace. In Balfours's terms, he 'will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Matter will know itself no longer.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> 'Imperishable monuments' and 'immortal deeds,' death itself, and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. Nor will anything that IS be better or be worse for all that labour, genius, devotion and suffering of man have striven through countless generations to effect." <br><br>(Italics added[by Pianka])</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/ManandHisGods.html">uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanu...sGods.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>In a recent interview with the Austin <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>American-Statesman</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, Pianka says, "We could be gods... We could be such great stewards of the Earth." <br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/5PIANKA.html">www.statesman.com/news/co...IANKA.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I wonder, too, what it signifies that instead of a biography on his university web pages, he has an "obituary"? And why while the end of his "obituary" gives a contact address for eric.pianka@heaven/hell.com , register.com says you can't use a slash in a .com domain name, and that email link actually leads to his university address at pianka@mail.utexas.edu . The Wayback Machine shows it's been that way since 1999. The "bazooka" link in the obit gives ample material for armchair psychoanalysis.<br><br>I'm not entirely sure what I'm seeing, but I believe the picture on his gatekeeping page where he tries to warn off prospective grad students may be of a very large snake ingesting a human being. "Ophidiophobic" means fearful of snakes.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/plumb.html">uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/plumb.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>As a side note, those readers with high blood pressure may wish to experiment with Piank's conjecture that cooling the head brings blood pressure down, which he relates to rattlesnakes.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/cool.head.html">uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanu....head.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><br>At the blog The Questionable Authority (written by a zoology grad student)<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://thequestionableauthority.blogspot.com/2006/04/seguin-gazette-enterprise-and.html">thequestionableauthority....e-and.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>See also the followup postings "The Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, My Foot, and My Mouth" and "More on the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise Affair" which correct some earlier statements the blogger had made. Note some further context given on student remarks about Pianka in the blog comments.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://thequestionableauthority.blogspot.com/">thequestionableauthority.blogspot.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: A few thoughts

Postby robertdreed » Sat Apr 15, 2006 4:02 pm

Looks like teapot tempest time to me. <p></p><i></i>
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