All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Perspectives We Need to Take Seriously

 

Doctor Doom, An Opinion

Dr. Eric R. Pianka, University of Texas at Austin:

"There's a place called Three Trees. One night, some cold, poor fellow went out and cut down those trees to build a fire. The trees are gone now, but we still call the place Three Trees. And that's how we do things."

"Snakes behind glass are like words in a book out of context. They have no habitat, no reality, no context. The snake may as well be dead."

"Technology has only gotten us out even further on thin ice."

"We've made wild animals very valuable and humans very cheap."

Dr. Pianka was named the 2006 Distinguished Scientist by the Texas Academy of Science. He's an ecologist, a "doomsday ecologist" as he puts it, with a CV several pages long and results that have changed the way ecologists think, forever. And damn is he ever entertaining to listen to.

Dr. Pianka's talk at the TAS meeting was mostly of the problems humans are causing as we rapidly proliferate around the globe. While what he had to say is way too vast to remember it all, moreover to relay it here in this blog, the bulk of his talk was that he's waiting for the virus that will eventually arise and kill off 90% of human population. In fact, his hope, if you can call it that, is that the ebola virus which attacks humans currently (but only through blood transmission) will mutate with the ebola virus that attacks monkeys airborne to create an airborne ebola virus that attacks humans. He's a radical thinker, that one! I mean, he's basically advocating for the death of all but 10% of the current population! And at the risk of sounding just as radical, I think he's right.

Humans are far too populous. We've used up our resources, and we're destroying the Earth at an accelerated pace. The more technology we create, the more damage we're capable of doing. We now consider keeping the forest natural to save a species of caterpillar more important that using that space for humans to live and till. And I'm in complete agreement with that. It's the harsh reality that many people alive right now should be dead. And even harsher to think that the world would be better off with them dead too. My grandparents, who I love dearly and am so incredibly thankful to know, are honestly being kept alive only through the technology that we have created via medicine. The same goes for the millions of other old folk alive and kicking and will continue to do so for another 5-10 years, using up more resources. Or think of all the babies being born every hour with abnormalities that 50 years ago would have kept them from living. Now, those lives can be saved, and we pat ourselves on the backs at how smart and charitable we are as a species that we can create and sustain life. For those against cloning, etc because it's "playing God," how is this any different?? Life has a built-in mechanism that keeps species from becoming too overpopulated, and it wasn't until humans started messing with the system that it went out of whack. Now that we've killed off the majority of all top predators, we now must take on the duty of keeping populations in check and at the same time, allowing other species a fair chance at reproduction.

It wouldn't have been so bad 15-20 years ago when we reached that threshold of sustainability if we as humans would have learned to control our population size then. But instead, we saw the Earth's resources as unlimited and our authority over them exclusive, and we continued to reproduce when we should've stop. Dr. Pianka made a very profound comment during his presentation; he said that China has the right idea by limiting reproduction at 1. We're past the point of replacement reproduction as a species. We're too many for the number we're at now! We need to decline in population. A virus is probably the fairest method of extermination (though still not completely fair, I admit) because it's nondiscriminatory as to whom it targets. Rich, poor, black, white, brown, nice, mean, religious, agnostic - we'd all be targeted equally. The only difference is who can afford medicine and even then, if it's a mutated virus that strikes fast, humans would have only the tiniest of a chance to find a cure in time so money wouldn't matter.

It'd be nice if humans could learn to manage our population as successively as we've learned to manage the population of literally every other species on this planet with whom we share. We're very skilled when it comes to killing off deer, snakes, rabbits, and fish for population control. But we're a stupid species when it comes to managing ourselves. An insightful observation was made during the talk that education should be the key to learning how to take care of the Earth, but the problem is that the educated have fewer children and the uneducated have many children. So eventually, the uneducated will take over the Earth. It may have already happened.

Questions and Comments

• Was the Holocaust an “excellent thing”?
• [From a colleague:] It is one thing to predict (however foolishly) that 90% of the human race will perish. It is something else to recommend that this happen on the grounds that human beings “are no better than bacteria.”
• Should the job of a professor who taught that the Holocaust was an excellent thing and ought to be repeated be protected on grounds of academic freedom?
  If not, then why should Dr. Pianka enjoy the right to profess his even more reprehensible teachings from a taxpayer-funded pulpit?
• [From another colleague:] Note also the absurdity of conjoining some views of the contemporary left: Wanting some people to die because they are Jews/black/retarded/homosexual/Gypsies/abortionists is evil, but wanting most people to die because they are wrecking the Earth (as one thinks it should be) is okay as long as it is nondiscriminatory!
• If I’m not mistaken, population growth is zero to negative in the predominantly “white” populations of North America and Europe, so the professor is going to have to go after “brown people” first if he’s really serious about attacking the problem.
• Ok, I can’t stand it anymore, I didn’t go looking for this, but I did find it. It is a refreshing counterpoint that cleanses the mental and spiritual palate like a cool clear glass of water after all this nasty poisonous stuff about Herr Doktor Pianka and his disciples (sorry, the man is loopier than a hoola hoop and just too hilterish for me)
  Anyway I found this story, a counterpoint of rejoicing to Pianka’s point of despair…

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