Denny's is offering a new breakfast special:
You get fourteen eggs, no sausage, and the
person next to you pays your bill.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
A defense of VHEMT, from an outsider's perspective!
Dear VHEMTers (and curious bystanders):
Your old pal Frish has been attacked by posters on a completely different blog, where he was explaining his Volunteer status.
Another poster, Chuck A, posted this most marvelous explanation of what is seen by some on that blog (it is of by and for atheists) to be my very own "irrational" or "hypocritical" stance, of living on with my life while denying life to any offspring, and espousing the view that humanity is doomed, regardless of any solution (that has yet to be) offered:
To weigh down a comment Frish made (excerpted below) with even more verbiage...
Humans aren't just individuals, we are highly social animals.
What we choose to define as either good or evil are - primarily, but not exclusively - both the product and the means by which we interact with our fellow humans.
Out of this ever-changing and never-ending struggle to balance our individual needs and desires with our need to remain a functional part of our social milieu(s), we develop ethics, morals, our sense of right and wrong.
Many societies have chosen over the millennia to ascribe their "codes" of right and wrong to the will of some sort of deity or deities. This (it is widely believed) lends greater weight to the value of the social code, and helps to regulate behavior and impose sanctions for violations of the code.
Atheists have - I would assume - realized that all such moral codes are in reality created by humans such as themselves, and no deities need apply for sponsorship of the values of their own as well as any other society on this planet, past, present or future.
To fully realize that WE have created our own codes of ethics and morality is NOT to negate the individual or group need for such codes. It is to realize that the responsibility for all such codes has always and will always be the responsibility of every individual, acting both individually and in concert with others.
In other words, WE all know that we have to act both for our own personal betterment and for the betterment of society. This need and this realization is "built into" us by some 3 million years of natural selection working on us to mould us into highly social, symbol creating/using par excellance, animals.
So it should not surprise anyone that someone who feels that humanity, en masse, is currently making so many behavioral mistakes that it will soon drive itself into extinction, will simultaneously feel the need to modify and control his own behavior so as to cause the least harm to others and to other life forms on the planet. After all, he could be wrong: humanity might survive despite the bad odds our moral individual beholds, and he wants humanity and/or the other earthly life forms to have the best possible chance for success.
Only an amoral person - or more accurately, a sociopath - which nearly all theists believe that all atheists truly are (whatever either group claims to "believe"), would use this pessimistic (or grimly realistic) vision for the future as personal license to do anything he wants to anyone/anything he wants, anytime he wants. Thoughtful atheists know they don't need the imaginary club of eternal damnation to behave in a socially responsible manner.
As someone recently paid to advertise on city buses (in England, I believe), "Just be good for goodness sake."
That's what it really boils down to.
yours,
Chuck A
At 07:58 PM 2/23/2009, frish wrote:
Your old pal Frish has been attacked by posters on a completely different blog, where he was explaining his Volunteer status.
Another poster, Chuck A, posted this most marvelous explanation of what is seen by some on that blog (it is of by and for atheists) to be my very own "irrational" or "hypocritical" stance, of living on with my life while denying life to any offspring, and espousing the view that humanity is doomed, regardless of any solution (that has yet to be) offered:
To weigh down a comment Frish made (excerpted below) with even more verbiage...
Humans aren't just individuals, we are highly social animals.
What we choose to define as either good or evil are - primarily, but not exclusively - both the product and the means by which we interact with our fellow humans.
Out of this ever-changing and never-ending struggle to balance our individual needs and desires with our need to remain a functional part of our social milieu(s), we develop ethics, morals, our sense of right and wrong.
Many societies have chosen over the millennia to ascribe their "codes" of right and wrong to the will of some sort of deity or deities. This (it is widely believed) lends greater weight to the value of the social code, and helps to regulate behavior and impose sanctions for violations of the code.
Atheists have - I would assume - realized that all such moral codes are in reality created by humans such as themselves, and no deities need apply for sponsorship of the values of their own as well as any other society on this planet, past, present or future.
To fully realize that WE have created our own codes of ethics and morality is NOT to negate the individual or group need for such codes. It is to realize that the responsibility for all such codes has always and will always be the responsibility of every individual, acting both individually and in concert with others.
In other words, WE all know that we have to act both for our own personal betterment and for the betterment of society. This need and this realization is "built into" us by some 3 million years of natural selection working on us to mould us into highly social, symbol creating/using par excellance, animals.
So it should not surprise anyone that someone who feels that humanity, en masse, is currently making so many behavioral mistakes that it will soon drive itself into extinction, will simultaneously feel the need to modify and control his own behavior so as to cause the least harm to others and to other life forms on the planet. After all, he could be wrong: humanity might survive despite the bad odds our moral individual beholds, and he wants humanity and/or the other earthly life forms to have the best possible chance for success.
Only an amoral person - or more accurately, a sociopath - which nearly all theists believe that all atheists truly are (whatever either group claims to "believe"), would use this pessimistic (or grimly realistic) vision for the future as personal license to do anything he wants to anyone/anything he wants, anytime he wants. Thoughtful atheists know they don't need the imaginary club of eternal damnation to behave in a socially responsible manner.
As someone recently paid to advertise on city buses (in England, I believe), "Just be good for goodness sake."
That's what it really boils down to.
yours,
Chuck A
At 07:58 PM 2/23/2009, frish wrote:
Because, dear Dima, we are moral creatures and almost all of us act morally (within our cultural teachings) almost all of the time. God isn't necessary for that, and I, within what I know to be moral, won't act as you suggest either.(Dima had suggested, that, if I'm right and we're all doomed, why not just ignore our carbon footprint and do whatever we wish. I'm no hermit, but I also know that having no offspring is the best I can do for the rest of life, and it reduces the numbers who will suffer when the biosphere no longer supports our species. That's my moral stance, as Chuck A has so beautifully amplified. Frish)
Cop makes arrest after smelling perp's crack in bathroom!
ELKTON, Md. – The Cecil County Sheriff's Office said a deputy about to take a bathroom break at a gas station smelled crack cocaine and made a quick arrest. Police spokesman Lt. Bernard Chiominto said Deputy John Lines was waiting to use the bathroom Friday at a Wawa convenience store when he smelled crack cocaine from outside the bathroom.
Lines then saw a 27-year-old man come out of the bathroom. Chiominto said Lines went in the bathroom, saw drug paraphernalia and arrested the man, who police said had glassy eyes and dilated pupils.
Police said the man resisted arrest and was subdued using pepper spray. He was charged with assault, resisting arrest and possession of drug paraphernalia after police found drug paraphernalia in his pockets.
Yes, the cop's name is LINES.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Beware of Tree-Trashing Tots!
An article from the NZ Herald...I wrote to the author and mentioned vhemt.
Perhaps she'll seek to interview someone in Auckland...
Deborah Coddington: Beware of the terrible tree-trashing tots There comes a time when campaigners lose potential support from fence-sitters, doubters or sceptics because they go too far. We've seen it with people like John Minto and Father Gerry Burns. Well-intentioned ... More Frish
Perhaps she'll seek to interview someone in Auckland...
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Re: [atheists-614] How VHEMT and Atheism are congruent!
William, thanks for sharing, cheaper than a therapist, glad I could be of service.
I wrote a nice much LONGER response and the system managed to delete it.
Please think about the following...it is simply our worldviews that are divergent, while we are both atheists (and are right to be so!), being right about humanities future doesn't really buy me much!
First, please note, it is a voluntary thing. Not Genocide. I simply am voluntarily not having offspring to reduce the numbers of humans who will inevitably be going extinct in the not very distant (150 years or less) future.
This isn't what I WANT to happen, (nothing self hating about it!) just what I foresee happening, given every trajectory for every unsustainable human practice...medical, energy production, agriculture, fishing, forestry, etc. etc. etc.
I said that VHEMT is far more repugnant to far more people than Atheism. Your note is prime evidence I was right about that!
Whether or not I'm an asshole is a matter of debate, one which I'd probably lose.
However, the output of my asshole and yours is killing estuaries and the ocean's nurseries all over the world, thanks for pointing out another non-sustainable practice (too much fertilizer) that is contributing to our demise.
I VEHEMENTLY disagree with your contention that causing "our environment to be adapted to us...is neither a good thing or a bad thing". I understand the point you are trying to make, that many technologies can be used for good (explosives build roads and kill people, etc.) however, turns out this aspect of human nature is an unequivocal BAD THING and will lead directly to our demise.
Live long and die off.
Frish, who is not very frightening at all.
I wrote a nice much LONGER response and the system managed to delete it.
Please think about the following...it is simply our worldviews that are divergent, while we are both atheists (and are right to be so!), being right about humanities future doesn't really buy me much!
First, please note, it is a voluntary thing. Not Genocide. I simply am voluntarily not having offspring to reduce the numbers of humans who will inevitably be going extinct in the not very distant (150 years or less) future.
This isn't what I WANT to happen, (nothing self hating about it!) just what I foresee happening, given every trajectory for every unsustainable human practice...medical, energy production, agriculture, fishing, forestry, etc. etc. etc.
I said that VHEMT is far more repugnant to far more people than Atheism. Your note is prime evidence I was right about that!
Whether or not I'm an asshole is a matter of debate, one which I'd probably lose.
However, the output of my asshole and yours is killing estuaries and the ocean's nurseries all over the world, thanks for pointing out another non-sustainable practice (too much fertilizer) that is contributing to our demise.
I VEHEMENTLY disagree with your contention that causing "our environment to be adapted to us...is neither a good thing or a bad thing". I understand the point you are trying to make, that many technologies can be used for good (explosives build roads and kill people, etc.) however, turns out this aspect of human nature is an unequivocal BAD THING and will lead directly to our demise.
Live long and die off.
Frish, who is not very frightening at all.
On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 10:06 PM, William <walgaru@gmail.com> wrote:
Honestly, you VHEMT people scare the shit out of me. Self-hating self-fulfilling genocide prophecies aside, any ideology which banks on denying the fundamental substance of human nature is not to be trusted. We are creatures who use tools. We are creatures who rather than adapting to our environment, cause our environment to be adapted to us. This is neither a good thing or a bad thing, it's powerful, and like all powerful things can either cause great good or great harm. We have to find the wisdom to use our adaptation to our benefit, which probably will look a lot like benefitting the earth ecosystem as a whole.Regardless, I hope you assholes don't ever suggest this nonsense is synonymous with atheism, or you'll bring back the fun times of burning atheists at the stake.William
Friday, February 20, 2009
How VHEMT and Atheism are congruent!
Chuck, thanks for the question about carrying capacity of Humans on Earth. I'll attempt to answer, and to suggest why Atheists ought to care! And, thanks for being a volunteer (if you have no children) or a supporter (if you have children but support the idea of VHEMT!).
Les Knight, the founder of the VHEMT movement and I agree that due to our very HUMAN NATURE, we are not going to stay within whatever artificial limit placed on our population.
Therefore, zero is the carrying capacity LONG TERM, per your question.
You may know that we're all, everyone of us, related to 200 or fewer individual humans who lived about 70,000 years ago, in East Africa. That what the geneticists have found...
Therefore, even after a really big die-off, figure way less than 70,000 years and we're back to where we are today, since not everything we now know about leveraging technology to support human life (and destroy the rest of the biosphere) can be expected to be unlearned, regardless of how brutal it may be for many many years for those who survive.
There are numerous "carbon footprint" websites that suggest several millions of us (as many as 2 billion by one estimate) could live "in harmony" with the environment, if we were, as you suggest, careful.
If you want to be depressed, check this out: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator1.html
Here are my results, I'm not proud...just glad to be childfree.
Each of us can decide to do the moral thing, and not breed.
Here's a neat synopsis of Earth Carrying Capacity, that does and doesn't answer your question!
http://mmcconeghy.com/students/supcarryingcapacity.html
Another site (http://www.dieoff.org/page174.htm) submits this conclusion:
"With a democratically determined population control policy that respects basic individual rights, with sound resource use policies, plus the support of science and technology to enhance energy supplies and protect the integrity of the environment, an optimum population of 2 billion for the Earth can be achieved. With a concerted effort, fundamental obligations to ensure the well-being of future generations can be attained within the 21st century. Individuals will then be free from poverty and starvation and live in an environment capable of sustaining human life with dignity. We must avoid letting humans numbers continue to increase to the limit of the Earth's natural resources and forcing natural forces to control our numbers by disease, malnutrition, and violent conflicts over resources."
If you think that sounds plausible, you may be the only one who does! The whole point of VHMET is that the final sentence is impossible to achieve, and, the limits of Earth's resources are being reached, way sooner than anyone suspects, and, "natural forces" will do what they do and we won't be around REGARDLESS OF WHAT WE DO TO TRY TO DELAY OR DENY IT.
Technology has always "bailed us out" in the past. Now Human Technology is not just overcoming natural boundaries, it is overwhelming natural systems. So, those who maintain that more technology is the answer have a grand tradition behind them and NO FUTURE at all!
Therefore, don't have kids, so that fewer suffer at the end!
The reason I submit this to this Atheist thread is that RELIGIOUSITY will attempt to thwart efforts to control population, as seen in the recent Economic Stimulus discussion of condoms...the "moral majority" are neither moral, nor the majority, but...they do control things way beyond their numbers or rationality would suggest they ought.
It is just as immoral as the position: "Let's fight them there, so we won't fight them here!" Since when is commiting war on someone else's territory (without provocation and by our own choice) moral in any way shape or form?
Oh well, humans aren't particularly rational, as this group certainly knows in spades!
Les Knight, the founder of the VHEMT movement and I agree that due to our very HUMAN NATURE, we are not going to stay within whatever artificial limit placed on our population.
Therefore, zero is the carrying capacity LONG TERM, per your question.
You may know that we're all, everyone of us, related to 200 or fewer individual humans who lived about 70,000 years ago, in East Africa. That what the geneticists have found...
Therefore, even after a really big die-off, figure way less than 70,000 years and we're back to where we are today, since not everything we now know about leveraging technology to support human life (and destroy the rest of the biosphere) can be expected to be unlearned, regardless of how brutal it may be for many many years for those who survive.
There are numerous "carbon footprint" websites that suggest several millions of us (as many as 2 billion by one estimate) could live "in harmony" with the environment, if we were, as you suggest, careful.
If you want to be depressed, check this out: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator1.html
Here are my results, I'm not proud...just glad to be childfree.
- Your footprint is 1.20 tonnes, (per month) which equates to 13.38 tonnes per year
- The average footprint for people in United States is 20.40 tonnes
- The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tonnes
- The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 tonnes
- The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 tonn
Each of us can decide to do the moral thing, and not breed.
Here's a neat synopsis of Earth Carrying Capacity, that does and doesn't answer your question!
http://mmcconeghy.com/students/supcarryingcapacity.html
Another site (http://www.dieoff.org/page174.htm) submits this conclusion:
"With a democratically determined population control policy that respects basic individual rights, with sound resource use policies, plus the support of science and technology to enhance energy supplies and protect the integrity of the environment, an optimum population of 2 billion for the Earth can be achieved. With a concerted effort, fundamental obligations to ensure the well-being of future generations can be attained within the 21st century. Individuals will then be free from poverty and starvation and live in an environment capable of sustaining human life with dignity. We must avoid letting humans numbers continue to increase to the limit of the Earth's natural resources and forcing natural forces to control our numbers by disease, malnutrition, and violent conflicts over resources."
If you think that sounds plausible, you may be the only one who does! The whole point of VHMET is that the final sentence is impossible to achieve, and, the limits of Earth's resources are being reached, way sooner than anyone suspects, and, "natural forces" will do what they do and we won't be around REGARDLESS OF WHAT WE DO TO TRY TO DELAY OR DENY IT.
Technology has always "bailed us out" in the past. Now Human Technology is not just overcoming natural boundaries, it is overwhelming natural systems. So, those who maintain that more technology is the answer have a grand tradition behind them and NO FUTURE at all!
Therefore, don't have kids, so that fewer suffer at the end!
The reason I submit this to this Atheist thread is that RELIGIOUSITY will attempt to thwart efforts to control population, as seen in the recent Economic Stimulus discussion of condoms...the "moral majority" are neither moral, nor the majority, but...they do control things way beyond their numbers or rationality would suggest they ought.
It is just as immoral as the position: "Let's fight them there, so we won't fight them here!" Since when is commiting war on someone else's territory (without provocation and by our own choice) moral in any way shape or form?
Oh well, humans aren't particularly rational, as this group certainly knows in spades!
On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 6:15 PM, Chuck A <webinfo49@att.net> wrote:
Frish,
That was a very interesting website.
I guess I was a VHEMT without ever having heard of them.
www.vhemt.org
I didn't read every word on the site, but I looked around, read about half of it, and am still left with no answer to a question I've had for a long time.
Perhaps you have come across some answer(s) to this.
The question is: What is the long-term carrying capacity for humans on this planet? Assume that long term is a million years or longer, and that we were immediately reduced to this number, and stayed within 1% of this number "forever".
My guess is perhaps a billion or less, but I really don't have any evidence to back up that guess.
What do you think (or know) about this?
yours,
Chuck A
At 10:49 PM 2/15/2009, frish wrote:
How droll. Is it fair that we pay taxes to kill people in Iraq, in an illegal war? there are plenty of things we ought not subsidize but we do, and birth control, contraception, abortion are in the public interest, and so should be subsidized.
Condoms ought to be free with every happy meal.
Abortion has been shown (Freakonomics) to reduce crime. Condoms are even cheaper.
Libertarians ought to realize (but won't) that VOLUNTARY Human Extinction is the only MORAL choice since it is the best way to reduce our population in the face of the coming "Armageddon" (sorry for the biblical reference, but it applies, in spades).
I am just sorry that any tax incentives still exist to support procreation.
Like tax credits for kids.
Like tax credits for big suvs that subsidize big families.
It is DEFINITELY in the government's interest (if we still have government by,of,for people) to subsidize birth control, abortion, sex ed and anything else that will reduce population.
But, my view is definitely far less "popular" than atheism. And, I'm a "libertarian" too!
There is no "biological clock" only social forces and ignorance that keeps people procreating.
Oh well. Live long and die off!
Dima, there are people starving right here in America.
But that's not the point. The future is filled with starvation and a biosphere that CANNOT support human life, regardless of the "technology" we throw at it. Our momentum and human nature will preclude solutions to the situation, and, we'll be extinct regardless of what we throw at the problem. Oh well.
I don't suspect/expect any of you agree. VHEMT is far less acceptable than atheism.
Frish, who is pleased every day that he's a volunteer!
Take a minute and read, it is a serious site...we're Vehement!
www.vhemt.org
Monday, February 16, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Looking at greenhouse gas!
I cannot agree more..."out of sight, out of mind" is a significant contributor to complacency.
Perhaps, some well placed "webcams" could turn increase awareness/consciousness...
Then, we have insane proposals that appear plausible on their face, but introduce myriad untold consequences as the video says: "What do we do with the gas that's captured?".
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=11857339
250,000 machines, probably as large as battleships, only to have millions of tons of "captured" CO2 sitting around, just like the nuclear waste from a power plant!
"Air Capture is no silver bullet!"
No, but not having kids is!
I greatly enjoy the "technological" answers to the problems that our "technological" culture has introduced.
Let's keep doing what got us here in the first place (or is that the definition of insanity?) since it has worked so well for us so far!
Frish
Perhaps, some well placed "webcams" could turn increase awareness/consciousness...
Then, we have insane proposals that appear plausible on their face, but introduce myriad untold consequences as the video says: "What do we do with the gas that's captured?".
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=11857339
250,000 machines, probably as large as battleships, only to have millions of tons of "captured" CO2 sitting around, just like the nuclear waste from a power plant!
"Air Capture is no silver bullet!"
No, but not having kids is!
I greatly enjoy the "technological" answers to the problems that our "technological" culture has introduced.
Let's keep doing what got us here in the first place (or is that the definition of insanity?) since it has worked so well for us so far!
Frish
A Miracle! The Dead Sister-In-Law Did It!
No one could write this stuff, only real life can capture the insanity displayed...
Frish
Frish
Monday, February 2, 2009
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