Population Control
What is a better form of population control, war or birth control?
Most people would say birth control, and I'm not really going to disagree with that, but in my perfect world the world government is limited in scope for the sole purpose of allowing individual countries the freedom to design their own governments according to their own value systems, so it kind of makes sense to consider the validity of some of those other value systems. After all, if something really is universally true, then maybe the world government should enforce it.
From a purely philosophical standpoint, I'm not sure it makes much difference whether you limit population through death or through lack of birth. Is it better to live for a short time and then die, or to never live at all? We are horified by the loss of life through genocide in Rwanda or from the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, but I can imagine a similarly horrifying statistic concerning the number of people who have never been born in the U.S..
I'm going to make up some numbers here because I'm too lazy to try to find out what the real numbers are, but let's say that we have 10 million families in the U.S.. Without birth control, let's say that each family would produce an average of 10 kids over the course of a 50 year marriage, whereas with birth control, they only produce an average of 2 kids over the same 50 year marriage. Now, for a little math: without birth control, you would have (10 * 10,000,000) / 50 = 2,000,000 births per year. With birth control, you have (2 * 10,000,000) / 50 = 400,000 births per year. That means that every year 1,600,000 people are not born in the U.S. because of birth control. Oh the humanity!
Okay, now let's look at the practical issues, I'm better at those anyway. Here are a few practical points to consider concerning this issue:
1) Natural Selection. A nation that does not try to prevent disease, starvation or murder will, over time, produce a genetically superior population than one that tries to make sure that everyone, once born, survives into adulthood.
(One exception here could be a nation that tries to make sure everyone survives, but only allows genetically superior people to reproduce. Unfortunately, I don't have the space or the time to cover every possible variation here, so this, and doubtlessly countless other variations, will be left as an exercise to the reader.)
2) Increased productivity. When people are less likely to be killed at home, they can afford to spend less time fortifying their homes and more time working and enjoying the fruits of their labor (e.g. jet skis). This strengthens the whole nation, allowing it to compete efficiently against its neighbors.
As a nation, we could spend less on police and military if we have a culture of peace and non-aggression. These extra resources can then be applied to research and development, further bettering your society and giving your nation a further advantage in competing against other nations.
Even if there are other internally agressive nations in the world that could threaten your security from the outside, if your nation is at peace internally, your citizens will be free to work and produce rather than spend time protecting their homes, so you will have more resources with which to defend yourself against these agressive nations.
2) Decreased grief. It is inherently a part of our nature that we feel grief when someone close to us dies. This will be true even if we live in a culture that puts a low value on life in general. We feel more grief over the loss of someone we knew than over the hypothetical non-birth of someone.
3) More wisdom in leadership. In a more peaceful nation, you will have a larger older population to help direct the efforts of the population as a whole. I'm not talking just about your grandfather telling you stories about when you were a kid, but also about older people in the workplace who have already tried the ideas that younger members are coming up with. Their experience helps stop companies from wasting a lot of time pursuing unproductive ideas.
Okay, there are probably other issues, but my kids are starting to hound me for food, and I'm getting distracted, so let me just wrap this up. The main point that I'm trying to make is that, while I think that a peaceful nation, relying on birth control to limit its population, is better than a chaotic one that limits its population through natural attrition, I'm not convinced that this is a universal truth, and I don't think that the world government, as I envision it, should enforce this.
posted by LeRoy at 3:38 PM
3 Comments:
IRAQ: WELCOME GENERATION-CHOICEMAKER
Consider:
The way we define 'human' determines our view of self,
others, relationships, institutions, life, and future.
Important? Only the Creator who made us in His own image
is qualified to define us accurately. Choose wisely...
there are results.
In an effort to diminish the multiple and persistent
dangers and abuses which have characterized the affairs
of man in his every Age, and to assist in the requisite
search for human identity, it is essential to perceive
and specify that distinction which naturally and most
uniquely defines the human being. Because definitions
rule in the minds, behaviors, and institutions of men,
we can be confident that delineating and communicating
that quality will assist the process of resolution and
the courageous ascension to which man is called. As
Americans of the 21st Century, we are obliged and privi-
leged to join our forebears and participate in this
continuing paradigm proclamation.
"WHAT IS MAN...?" God asks - and answers:
HUMAN DEFINED: EARTH'S CHOICEMAKER
by JAMES FLETCHER BAXTER (c) 2005
Many problems in human experience are the result of false
and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised in man-
made religions and humanistic philosophies.
Human knowledge is a fraction of the whole universe. The
balance is a vast void of human ignorance. Human reason
cannot fully function in such a void; thus, the intellect
can rise no higher than the criteria by which it perceives
and measures values.
Humanism makes man his own standard of measure. However,
as with all measuring systems, a standard must be greater
than the value measured. Based on preponderant ignorance
and an egocentric carnal nature, humanism demotes reason
to the simpleton task of excuse-making in behalf of the
rule of appetites, desires, feelings, emotions, and glands.
Because man, hobbled in an ego-centric predicament, cannot
invent criteria greater than himself, the humanist lacks
a predictive capability. Without instinct or transcendent
criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options with foresight
and vision for progression and survival. Lacking foresight,
man is blind to potential consequence and is unwittingly
committed to mediocrity, averages, and regression - and
worse. Humanism is an unworthy worship.
The void of human ignorance can easily be filled with a
functional faith while not-so-patiently awaiting the foot-
dragging growth of human knowledge and behavior. Faith,
initiated by the Creator and revealed and validated in His
Word, the Bible, brings a transcendent standard to man the
choice-maker. Other philosophies and religions are man-
made, humanism, and thereby lack what only the Bible has:
1.Transcendent Criteria and
2.Fulfilled Prophetic Validation.
The vision of faith in God and His Word is survival equip-
ment for today and the future.
Man is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by nature
and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of Criteria.
Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive characteristic
is, and of Right ought to be, the natural foundation of
his environments, institutions, and respectful relations
to his fellow-man. Thus, he is oriented to a Freedom
whose roots are in the Order of the universe.
At the sub-atomic level of the physical universe quantum
physics indicates a multifarious gap or division in the
causal chain; particles to which position cannot be
assigned at all times, systems that pass from one energy
state to another without manifestation in intermediate
states, entities without mass, fields whose substance is
as insubstantial as "a probability."
Only statistical conglomerates pay tribute to
deterministic forces. Singularities do not and are
therefore random, unpredictable, mutant, and in this
sense, uncaused. The finest contribution inanimate
reality is capable of making toward choice, without its
own selective agencies, is this continuing manifestation
of opportunity as the pre-condition to choice it defers
to the natural action of living forms.
Biological science affirms that each level of life,
single-cell to man himself, possesses attributes of
sensitivity, discrimination, and selectivity, and in
the exclusive and unique nature of each diversified
life form.
The survival and progression of life forms has all too
often been dependent upon the ever-present undeterminative
potential and appearance of one unique individual organism
within the whole spectrum of a given life-form. Only the
uniquely equipped individual organism is, like The Golden
Wedge of Ophir, capable of traversing the causal gap to
survival and progression. Mere reproductive determinacy
would have rendered life forms incapable of such potential.
Only a moving universe of opportunity plus choice enables
the present reality.
Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly
developed, and sensitive perception of diversity. Thus
aware, man is endowed with a natural capability for enact-
ing internal mental and external physical selectivity.
Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends
itself as the superior basis of an active intelligence.
Man is earth's Choicemaker. His title describes his
definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall that his
other features are but vehicles of experience intent on
the development of perceptive awareness and the
following acts of decision. Note that the products of
man cannot define him for they are the fruit of the
discerning choice-making process and include the
cognition of self, the utility of experience, the
development of value-measuring systems and language,
and the acculturation of civilization.
The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits,
customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of
his perceptive and selective powers. Creativity is a
choice-making process. His articles, constructs, and
commodities, however marvelous to behold, deserve
neither awe nor idolatry, for man, not his contrivance,
is earth's own highest expression of the creative process.
Man is earth's Choicemaker. The sublime and significant
act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean fulcrum upon
which man levers and redirects the forces of cause and
effect to an elected level of quality and diversity.
Further, it orients him toward a natural environmental
opportunity, freedom, and bestows earth's title, The
Choicemaker, on his singular and plural brow.
Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication
by man from his natural role as earth's Choicemaker,
inevitably degenerate into collectivism; the negation of
singularity, they become a conglomerate plural-based
system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness
of diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the
selective creative process, they are self-relegated to
a passive and circular regression.
Tampering with man's selective nature endangers his
survival for it would render him impotent and obsolete
by denying the tools of diversity, individuality,
perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress.
Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts
are contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature's
indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.
Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just
begins with a respectful acknowledgment of The Creator,
The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever
learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates
the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and
delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect
cannot ascend and function at any level higher than the
criteria by which it perceives and measures values.
Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria
self-denies man the vision and foresight essential to
decision-making for survival and progression. He is left,
instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive hind-
sight, including human institutions characterized by
averages, mediocrity, and regression.
Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric
predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent
criteria. Evidenced by those who do not perceive
superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting
winds of the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires,
appetites, etc., the mind becomes subordinate: a mere
device for excuse-making and rationalizing self-justifica-
tion.
The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such
instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude. The
appetites of the flesh have no need of standards for at the
point of contention standards are perceived as alien, re-
strictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our
physical nature itself depends upon a maintained sover-
eignty of the mind and of the spirit.
It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal
and living Creator to traverse the human horizon and
fill the vast void of human ignorance with an intelli-
gent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded the
prime tool of the intellect - a Transcendent Standard
by which he may measure values in experience, anticipate
results, and make enlightened and visionary choices.
Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deserved-
ly displace the ego-person from his predicament and free
the individual to measure values and choose in a more
excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the
words of the prophet Amos, "...said the Lord, Behold,
I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel."
Y'shua Mashiyach Jesus said, "If I be lifted up I will
draw all men unto myself."
As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality
and submit to the delusions of humanism, determinism, and
collectivism, just so long will they be subject and re-
acting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from
others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect
justice, find themselves weighed in the balances of their
own choosing.
That human institution which is structured on the
principle, "...all men are endowed by their Creator with
...Liberty...," is a system with its roots in the natural
Order of the universe. The opponents of such a system are
necessarily engaged in a losing contest with nature and
nature's God. Biblical principles are still today the
foundation under Western Civilization and the American
way of life. To the advent of a new season we commend the
present generation and the "multitudes in the valley of
decision."
Let us proclaim it. Behold!
The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV
CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS
"I should think that if there is one thing that man has
learned about himself it is that he is a creature of
choice." Richard M. Weaver
"Man is a being capable of subduing his emotions and
impulses; he can rationalize his behavior. He arranges
his wishes into a scale, he chooses; in short, he acts.
What distinguishes man from beasts is precisely that he
adjusts his behavior deliberately." Ludwig von Mises
"To make any sense of the idea of morality, it must be
presumed that the human being is responsible for his
actions and responsibility cannot be understood apart
from the presumption of freedom of choice."
John Chamberlain
"The advocate of liberty believes that it is complementary
of the orderly laws of cause and effect, of probability
and of chance, of which man is not completely informed.
It is complementary of them because it rests in part upon
the faith that each individual is endowed by his Creator
with the power of individual choice."
Wendell J. Brown
"Our Founding Fathers believed that we live in an ordered
universe. They believed themselves to be a part of the
universal order of things. Stated another way, they
believed in God. They believed that every man must find
his own place in a world where a place has been made for
him. They sought independence for their nation but, more
importantly, they sought freedom for individuals to think
and act for themselves. They established a republic
dedicated to one purpose above all others - the preserva-
tion of individual liberty..." Ralph W. Husted
"We have the gift of an inner liberty so far-reaching
that we can choose either to accept or reject the God
who gave it to us, and it would seem to follow that the
Author of a liberty so radical wills that we should be
equally free in our relationships with other men.
Spiritual liberty logically demands conditions of outer
and social freedom for its completion." Edmund A. Opitz
"Above all I see an ability to choose the better from the
worse that has made possible life's progress."
Charles Lindbergh
"Freedom is the Right to Choose, the Right to create for
oneself the alternatives of Choice. Without the possibil-
ity of Choice, and the exercise of Choice, a man is not
a man but a member, an instrument, a thing."
Thomas Jefferson
THE QUESTION AND THE ANSWER
Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son
of man that You visit him?" Psalm 8:4
A: "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against
you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing
and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and
your descendants may live." Deuteronomy 30:19
Q: "Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that you are mindful of him?" Psalm
144:3
A: "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose
for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the
gods which your fathers served that were on the other
side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose
land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15
Q: "What is man, that he could be pure? And he who is
born of a woman, that he could be righteous?" Job 15:14
A: "Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He
teach in the way he chooses." Psalm 25:12
Q: "What is man, that You should magnify him, that You
should set Your heart on him?" Job 7:17
A: "Do not envy the oppressor and choose none of his
ways." Proverbs 3:31
Q: "What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son
of man that You take care of him?" Hebrews 2:6
A: "I have chosen the way of truth; your judgments I have
laid before me." Psalm 119:30 "Let Your hand become my
help, for I have chosen Your precepts."Psalm 119:173
References:
Genesis 3:3,6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28; 30:19 Job 5:23
Isaiah 7:14-15; 13:12; 61:1 Amos 7:8 Joel 3:14
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Psalm 119:1-176
DEDICATION
Sir Isaac Newton
The greatest scientist in human history
a Bible-Believing Christian
an authority on the Bible's Book of Daniel
committed to individual value
and individual liberty
Daniel 9:25-26 Habakkuk 2:2-3 KJV selah
"What is man...?" Earth's Choicemaker Psalm 25:12 KJV
http://www.choicemaker.net/
jbaxter@choicemaker.net
An old/new paradigm - Mr. Jefferson would agree!
(There is no alternative!)
+ + +
"Man cannot make or invent or contrive principles. He
can only discover them and he ought to look through the
discovery to the Author." -- Thomas Paine 1797
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Okay, I tried cutting and pasting from Notepad and the formatting sucked. Here is what the previous post meant to say:
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Okay, that went a little over my head, I had to look up the word "humanist" in the dictionary. I would say that if the God of Abraham exists, and if He is the author, by inspiration, of the Bible, as Christians claim, then of course His word would carry much more validity than any work of man. However, that is a lot of ifs (okay, it's only two ifs, but they're big ones). Assuming that God does exist, then you still need to prove that the Bible, as opposed to say the Torah or the Koran, is his defining piece of work. And if he doesn't exist, then all bets are off. The Torah, Bible and Koran are just works of men and, as such, carry no more authority than any other work of man.
As for man being the "choicemaker", I hope you realize the power of that statement, for it gives each man the right to choose his own philosophy, even if it differs from your own, even, theoretically, if it denies the virtue of personal choice.
Is man defined as "the choicemaker"? Certainly he is capable of making choices, and certainly it is his choices which define him, but is he alone in this distinction? I guess that it is defining him as "THE choicemaker", as opposed to "A choicemaker" that I most take objection to. Although we certainly consider more information in making our decisions than does, for example, a dog, nonetheless, a dog also makes decisions. For example, a dog will decide when to cross a road by watching, and looking for a break in, the traffic. This is a far cry from us deciding something like which career to pursue, but it is a difference in scale, not in nature. One can just as easily postulate a higher intelligence that would make our decisions look equally naive by comparison.
Or maybe you meant something a little grander than the personal choices we all make everyday. Maybe you meant something more along the lines of decisions that a society as a whole makes? For example, with all of the evidence for global warming, we could, as a society, make a decision to reduce our production of green house gases, and yet, for some reason, we are failing to do so. We are rushing headlong toward our destiny like a bunch of lemmings heading for a cliff. If we're lucky, the danger will prove to be less than what some people predict, but, if so, it will be by luck that we survive, and not by plan.
I'm being a little unfair here. We have, as a society, not been convinced of the danger, so we have decided continue on our current course until the evidence becomes more convincing. Okay, you've convinced me. We can make decisions as a society. The decision making process is generally most influenced by those in power, in some societies more so than others, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Those in power have the most interest vested in the current organization of a society, so they are most likely to make decisions that enforce that organization, but that simply leads to stability in a society. If the power of the elite becomes too strong, the society will stagnate, but as long as change is possible, then there can be advancement. This is not the decision of a particular individual, but that of the consensus of a society, and therefore may seem somewhat random and uncontrollable, but it is decision making nonetheless.
One last question:
"WHAT IS MAN...?" God asks - and answers:
HUMAN DEFINED: EARTH'S CHOICEMAKER
by JAMES FLETCHER BAXTER (c) 2005
Did James Fletcher Baxter actually hear God ask and answer that question? 'Cause if he did, wouldn't he be plagiarizing God by putting his name at the end of it? And if he didn't, then isn't he being a little presumptious by attributing his own ideas to God? And if someone can be presumptuous enough to do that today, what makes you think the authors of the Bible were not simply being equally presumptuous?
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