heironymouscoward's Journal: Answer to Malthus

I read this discussion about population control by Pieter Hintjens.

One quote:

We don't really have any control over events, neither at the small scale of our own lives, nor at the large scale of planetary life. We are almost totally ignorant of and blind to the forces that direct us. Our destiny is not in our own hands, and it never has been. We are actors in the game of life, but the lines we speak come from an evolutionary past we cannot control, by definition, and barely understand.
No-one and nothing is in charge. Understanding this is a first step to enlightenment. I do not know whether there are further steps.

I have to admit his writing is very close to my own ideas. What do you think?

Control is a straw man

[MarkusQ]

For one thing, I object to the term "control" in this context, since it sets up a straw man which is too easily struck down by what follows. A more interesting question would be: do we have influence?

To that, I think the question is clearly "yes."

-- MarkusQ

Influence vs. control

[heironymouscoward]

Good point.

Speaking for myself, I can assert that I wield considerable influence over my surroundings, yes, but this influence exerts itself entirely outside my control.

I sometimes shock myself with the brutality of the decisions I make, undoubtedly influential on lives of the people I hire and fire, yet I have little or no control over these decisions. They are always entirely logical, flowing effortlessly from what I know of the situation, what I believe are the relative risks and benefits for, and aga

Re:Control is a straw man

[Cujo]

I agree - the subject article takes on a couple of Strawmen, assigns all possible viewpoints to some linear combination of the two, and then argues that it "doesn't matter." For example, I don't think even the most radical Darwinians believe that we are "just" survival machines for our genes. Pretty feeble.

OTOH, he is right about world population. Fertility is falling all over the world and is below replacement in many developed nations. It would be below replacement iin the U.S., except that immigrant

Follow up: NYT article

[Cujo]

Related is this article in the NYT [nytimes.com] about how small town populations are declining in the U.S.