Patience

Date: Wed Jun 8 3:42 PM, 2005

Patience

Scott Leffler · Guru

I see this all the time and it irritates the h*ll out of me.

And of course the beauty of it is, they didn't have anywhere they needed to be. They just didn't want to be where they were. And once they got where they were going, they couldn't wait to leave.

"Why is the world so jam packed full of idiots." - Sandra Bernhard as Minerva Mayflower in Hudson Hawk (one of my favorite movies ever).

Date: Wed Jun 8 4:46 PM, 2005

Or the person that pulls out in front of you at the last minute risking being rear ended when your the only other car on the road.

Date: Wed Jun 8 5:22 PM, 2005

patience is a virtue.

Mindcrime · Guru

I was in a department store yesterday, and was standing in the express lane (8 items or less). An old man was being taken care of, and he seemed a little confused about a price. Next was a young professional man. A mother with a screaming 5-year-old child (and 12 items). Then there was me. Behind me was an extremely impatient man (with a wheelchair-bound woman) who was being very vocal about the line being held up. He was talking and swearing at a level that could easily be heard by the cashier, who was going as fast as she could due to the older man.

After what was realistically 2 whole minutes, the old guy left. The jerk behind me said something to the effect of "It's about f---ing time!" The young professional (who was talking on his cel phone) bought a loaf of bread and some candy WITH A CREDIT CARD. I'm sorry, but no one should be paying 12% interest on wonderbread and a KitKat bar. The mother, whose child has been picking up everything and throwing it around, had many items, and paid by check...the first of which she ruined because the kid kept pulling on her arm. So she wrote another check, & had it cleared by the manager because she had no ID.

I was very calm and reserved the whole time. By the time I got up to the cashier, she looked frazzled. I put my 4 items down, paid with cash, and said "You're doing fine, don't rush."

As I walked away, she asked the rude jerk the standard "how are you today?" He actually sounded cheerful and said "great!" I can only hope she gacve him the wrong change...

James Hufnagel · Veteran Member

The population of the planet, and of the US, is growing rapidly. We're getting more crowded every day.

When people feel crowded, they start acting nasty at each other.

Dovey · Senior Member

Have all of us looked at the patience on this blog.No emails please,Just have patience with me.

jspeer · Guru

James Hufnagel wrote:

The population of the planet, and of the US, is growing rapidly. We're getting more crowded every day.
When people feel crowded, they start acting nasty at each other.

Is that the problem on the website? I thought more members was a good thing.

Date: Fri Jun 24 5:55 PM, 2005

They are,the more the merrier!

shughes · Senior Member

I think you nailed it JS the more members the better. Though I do wonder why one who feels the planet is over crowded, wanted a public office that deals with children. Takes all kinds I guess.

Date: Fri Jun 24 8:43 PM, 2005

SHughes,

It's precisely because kids are important that overpopulation is such a concern. The planet is warming up, the oceans are being degraded, 1.2 billion people do not have access to clean water, 800,000,000 people on this planet don't get enough food to sustain themselves. We're running out of resources to sustain such a large population.

Two hundred years ago there were a billion people on the planet, when JFK was elected we hit 3 billion, six years ago we topped out over 6 billion, and we'll probably go over 9 billion by the middle of this century. How many billions do you think are appropriate? 15 billion? 30 billion?

Wanting to slow population growth is a great way to show how much you like children, and that you want to pass along a planet to them that isn't totally devoid of natural resources, wildlife, forests, wetlands or anything else natural.

Luckily we know how to attain lower population growth:

1. decrease childhood mortality - because couples tend to have fewer children if they have a reasonable belief that they will survive to adulthood

2. educate, employ and empower women - so that they don't have to prove their worth by how many children they can produce

3. universal access to family planning - quite remarkably, it is a constant from culture to culture, that given the opportunity and the means, couples will opt to have two kids

All the protesting against foreign aid that I've read on the Forum the past couple of days should not apply to international family planning aid. The CIA has actually identified global overpopulation as one of the most dangerous national security issues facing the USA, so it is actually in our interest to assist developing countries as they work to slow population growth.

Jim Hufnagel

Date: Fri Jun 24 9:02 PM, 2005

Link to Global Population and Environment Campaign Plan 2004... on which Jim was a participant

Link to The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
...a group that one of the members of Jim's group gave a lecture to. PLEASE tell us that you and Sierra have not aligned with these nuts.

It would be sort of interesting to know the ages of those working in the Global Population Campaign and the size of their families.

shughes · Senior Member

Wow, this was quite the eye opener. A couple of things jumped right out at me. Rather than me tossing my opinion out, I'll let you decide for your selves. This could turn into a really interesting thread. Just a preview:

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

"May we live long and die out"

"When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Mother Nature's "experiments" have done throughout the eons. Good health will be restored to the Earth's ecology... to the "life form" known by many as Gaia."

Really wild reading!

-- Edited by shughes at 22:31, 2005-06-24

Date: Sat Jun 25 1:50 PM, 2005

100 billion? 200 billion?

Jim H.

Date: Sat Jun 25 3:00 PM, 2005

Anonymous wrote:

100 billion? 200 billion?
Jim H.

OMG... this extreme hyperbole of jumping from your projected 9 billion in population in 50 years to 200 billion is your reply? You ARE associated with them!?

So mankind is just a parasite on the face of Gaia?

I'm sure that your own Buffalo News example - a laughably transparent attempt at fear-mongering, dressed up as sincere concern about wanting to protect the power plant from terrorist ninjas bent on destroying it with "Uzis and dirty bombs" - will come true and help thin out the human herd.

Your obvious tactics, misguided attempts and shallow condescension belay an arrogant disdain for the desires and intelligence of everyone else.

Date: Sat Jun 25 5:30 PM, 2005

Anon -

You're the only one of 6.4 billion that I hold an "arrogant disdain for the desires and intelligence of".

Answer the question: 15 billion? 30 billion? 100 billion? 200 billion?

How many people do you think the planet can sustain with anything resembling an acceptable quality of life?

Do you think?

Date: Sat Jun 25 5:32 PM, 2005

Or do you just thumb through your thesaurus?

Date: Sat Jun 25 6:45 PM, 2005

The word you were looking for is "belie" not "belay".

Try getting a grasp of the English language before you criticize others, you simple ass.

shughes · Senior Member

Anonymous wrote:

<Your obvious tactics, misguided attempts and shallow condescension belay an arrogant disdain for the desires and intelligence of everyone else.> The word you were looking for is "belie" not "belay". Try getting a grasp of the English language before you criticize others, you simple ass.

Well check this out, all this attacking and I was to busy to be in the middle of it. Well let's see what I can do to fix that.

Good point anon, taking out the PP would reduce those numbers. All these $10 dollar words don't impress me. If fact they just prove you arrogance. Save your energy for some other venue. Unless all those expensive words boost you self importance, I wouldn't want to harm your self esteem.

The whole planned parent involvement makes much more sense now, it must be plan B. Hey let's flood the schools with all of this information, I sure the community would love it!

Why is it that when you are chalenged you start calling people names? Can't you defend your position without taking it down to that level?

Mindcrime · Guru

Anonymous wrote:

So mankind is just a parasite on the face of Gaia?

In scientific terms, that's exactly what we are. We live off a greater entity for our our exclusive benefit. There is nothing symbiotic about our relationship to the Earth. It doesn't need us. We can't help it, no matter how many trees we plant or cans we recycle. Long after we're gone, the planet will erase all evidence of our befoulments because it's a self-sufficient system. Now I don't subscribe to this self-extinction philosophy, because my sense of self-preservation is stronger than my sense of responsibility to people who aren't even conceived yet. But to say we're less important than the Earth is kinda biased. The Earth is indifferent to our presence.

In point of fact, humans more closely resemble something else. Something which moves to an area, and multiplies, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way it can survive is to spread to another area. Face it, we're little more than a virus.

mike of the mountain · Senior Member

Mindcrime wrote:

Anonymous wrote: So mankind is just a parasite on the face of Gaia? In scientific terms, that's exactly what we are. We live off a greater entity for our our exclusive benefit. there are those that say it is not for our benefit but for the benefit of the creator - there is no gaia . this phase of this cycle of testing is nearer to the end than it is to the beginning .

    a closer name is YHWH . the islamics use the word Allah - the christians , Jehovah .

The Earth is indifferent to our presence. In point of fact, humans more closely resemble something else. Something which moves to an area, and multiplies, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way it can survive is to spread to another area. Face it, we're little more than a virus.

ok, so you saw the matrix too .    bad comparison.

Date: Tue Jun 28 10:07 PM, 2005

Thanks, Mike OTM.

Here's some other pearls.

"Issuing fewer invitations to the next generation will make certain that all invited will have a better time." - Margaret Mead

"Of all the issues we face as the new millennium nears, none is more important than population growth." - National Geographic Magazine, October 1998

"In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it is perched." - Paul Ehrlich

"The modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discussed and with resources we possess." - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1966

Jim Hufnagel

Mindcrime · Guru

If there's no Gaia, then there's no Creator. I know how you like facts...

And if you can demonstrate how we are not like a virus, I'll be happy to rescind my Matrix comparison.

Date: Wed Jun 29 1:43 PM, 2005

We are about as much like a virus as we are similar to a rock or an end table or a piece of gum.

Viruses don't "metabolize" or respirate (release energy from chemical bonds). All they are, are packets of nucleic acids inside a protein covering that hijack living systems. A snap of static electricity can hijack your laptop, but that doesn't make the spark something that computes.

Of course, viruses don't think like humans do. It's pretty much universally agreed that consciousness constitutes human life. Viruses don't even possess a nervous system.

I've had the Matrix quote thrown at me in the past. The best response is that people are a good thing. The planet simply can't sustain too many more of us. In fact, with global warming, deforestation, sprawl, degradation of our atmosphere and oceans, loss of biodiversity and extinction of species, we're probably subdued the planet too much already.

The Matrix quote assumes people are intrinsically bad. I don't think that's a positive or productive approach to the environmental problems, driven by populaton growth, that confront us.

Jim Hufnagel