We Need A Famine

26 Replies to “We Need A Famine”

1. Practically all the world’s problems are caused by a combination of three things:

   1. Islam.

   2. Runaway population growth, courtesy of people with low IQ’s and poor impulse control having more children than they can possibly feed.

   3. People in countries blessedly free of 1. and 2. above, who don’t know when they’re well off.

2. It is an interesting study and you can certainly see examples of this effect in politics, government, political activists, journalism and academia. I’m not so sure this is a universal effect though. Perhaps it dominates in careers where creating and then “solving” the created problem is lucrative – people whose career are dependant on constantly promoting these new problems. It also may attract people with certain personality types, ages and SES.

   A criticism from PsychRabble:
   “Went right to the sample sizes, reported only in the supplement (did reviewers not read? don’t care? this is SCIENCE![the premier journal]) which were: 22, 43, 92,37, 23, 49. All Harvard Students.”

   Very small sample and not very representative mix of the population.

   1. The effect is universal, at least in human beings. If solution to the problem is seen as an achievement, one who wants to be successful has to go to the margins to find remnants or resemblance of the original problem. In some extreme case the problem is misidentified, misrepresented and falsely presented. If justice is a desirable goal within a society and the society has been stable for some time, then through some linguistic trick market old failed and destructive ideas as the social justice.
      I think exploiting margins is the mechanism in Minsky principle.

      1. It may feel like the study is correct but this study does not prove it. If they could replicate the findings with bigger samples that are more representative of the population, including both our WEIRD culture and the rest of the world, then it would stand on firmer ground.

         With major psychological studies failing to replicate and researchers of those major studies found to have manipulated/corrupted their studies…It would be unwise to promote this study to settled science. Robbers Cave, Stanford Prison, Implicit Bias, Power Pose, Marshmallow Test for delayed gratification, Blank Slate, etc.

3. “If a man were called upon to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name” that which exists in the United States right now.
   The quote is from Gibbon in “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” on the Age of the Antonines. The paraphrase is mine.

   Having fixed a problem and thinking the problem still exists is but a small symptom of the malaise in our age. In general, we have enjoyed so much peace and prosperity that we have taken all that for granted, and any little setback is seen as monumental. Further, the Eeyores among us will invent problems where there is none, and so device remedies which are actually real injustices. The so-called problems could be pseudo-scientific (“global warming”) could be pseudo-societal (anything with phobia at the end of it) or could confuse equality of result with equality of opportunity.

   In fact, no one who wants to just goes about his business is held back for any reason, unless it is because preferential treatment is given to “victim groups.” Society in general does not ask who you are, only what you can do. And the lot of the common man, which almost all of us are, is so far above what the world has seen, that someone transported from a different time or different place would surely see it as paradise. And yet, and yet, the Eeyores want to pull it all down to “solve” non-existent problems. Seemingly they have no idea what real deprivation is like. It reminds me of those kids who yell so much about the repressive American society that they actually believe it. They casually violate the laws in a foreign country, expecting no worse treatment than in America, then find out what the system of justice is like in Mexico or Turkey, and many other countries.

   1. Indeed. Most every American citizen born after the baby boomers has NO perspective. No sense or knowledge of history. No ability to conceptuaize the quantitative magnitude of the planet upon which they live. Add to that … generations of narcissists … and every fart in a crowded restaurant is an existential CRISIS! And every crisis deserves an immediate solution … even if the solution is WORSE than the crisis.

      1. The baby Boomers should be included in this too. Remember they are the ones who provided us George Bush 2 Clinton and Obama as presidents. Donald Trump is an exception to the rule that the baby boomers especially the early ones are incredibly self absorbed and entitled crap. Their Ivy league background probably strongly contributed to this as well. I think what redeemed Trump as a decision-maker is he learned he had to live in the real world as a businessman and actually do things in order to be rewarded.

         1. hey small C, boosh one a johnson the johnson were pretty despicable. Now go read some history of the whole last century

            1. Of course you’re right.

               It’s just that I have dozens of relatives who fall in that age group and I would say the ratio of responsible to selfish in that group is one to one at best.

               So if at best 50% are responsible and that’s arguable then I wouldn’t say the generation as a whole has done a lot of good for the nation.

               Compared to the culture of those people who fought and won World War II though the culture of the baby boomers is crap.

         2. The Boomers were children of Depression and WW II parents. They grew up in the era of recovery from decades of ‘want’. Their parents laid the ground work for the unfunded social benefits that are now in place for a demographic that cannot pay enough. The responsibility the Boomers owe is that they did not correct their parents but added to this debt.

            IMHO the odds of Trump success are slim. They would be slim for any leader who cannot force mandatory restraint. The oddity about Trump is his steadfast approach and unlike his predecessors a continual reference to the balance sheet of government. While I thought Mitt Romney was the best business mind who could have led the USA out of financial trouble it is now up to Trump. Bush 2 lost me in his 2nd term when he did not act on entitlements but simply kicked the can down the road. It does not appear that Trump is willing to do that.

            Every effort is being made to trivialize Trump’s approach to world trade and defense. His approach threatens not just other world economies but also undermines many multinational companies who profit from global outsourcing. Tremendous amounts of money will be sent to the USA to ensure his political defeat. Trump has to ensure GDP growth of +3% minimum and mainstreet has to see an improvement in living standards. To date he is achieving this.

            Does anyone find it passing strange that there is no comment about the increased cash flow to the USA federal government coffers as a result of the increased economic activity and serously reduced unemployment? At the time of the tax cuts the universally accepted target in GDP growth had to be 2.8%, which did not seem achievable at that time, to make the tax cuts revenue neutral. Well the 2nd Qtr will be in excess of 4%. Polls indicate a GOP win in November. What now MSM?

         3. In my defense, I included boomers simply because of the VietNam War. The Greatest Generation fought and died for SOMETHING … and then forced my generation to die for NOTHING. And to be honest … despite having a very low lottery number on my 18th birthday … I supported the War. Because I ‘believed’ our government, our leaders, would always do the right thing. Yes, I have grown-up considerably since then.

            Yes, we were the pampered generation. However, we at least benefitted from being raised by the greatest generation who gave us the oral history of the Great Depression, WWII, and witnessed Communism and the overrun countries of Europe. We knew about Mao’s Cultural Revolution … so many things that were taught by our parents and schools that aren’t even in the leftist-narrated history textbooks of today.

            Unfortunately, our generation IS defined by the greedy, me-first, self-actualization, gimme-gimme-gimme 80’s. But what went terribly WRONG with my generation is that we elected the WORST of our generation to lead our country. We elected the bomb-throwers, rent-seekers, and cultural degenerates to high office. And we elected corporatist-Globalist whores who sold out America’s middle class … to remain “competitive”. And now we are bent on transforming the BEAUTIFUL country I was raised in … into a turd world cesspool.

            1. “We elected the bomb-throwers, rent-seekers, and cultural degenerates to high office. And we elected corporatist-Globalist whores who sold out America’s middle class … to remain “competitive”. And now we are bent on transforming the BEAUTIFUL country I was raised in … into a turd world cesspool.”

               I voted for Dole too…..a war hero with a wife who headed the Red Cross…Nice people are not winners.. the Congress is full of beady eyed rats who devourer the unwary… Trump knows who he can trust with a gun…Nobody!

         4. “Donald Trump is an exception to the rule that the baby boomers especially the early ones are incredibly self absorbed”
            I remember watching Donald on Larry King live; it has always been about Donald.

      2. “Add to that … generations of narcissists … and every fart in a crowded restaurant is an existential CRISIS! And every crisis deserves an immediate solution …”

         Absolutely right.

         One hundred years ago today the Great War was still raging, and though it would end just four months later, no one could know that at the time. Some 18 million – both military and civilians – had been killed.

         To top things off, the Spanish flu had become a global pandemic. We don’t even know with any accuracy how many it killed but the estimate is between 50 and 100 million by 1919.

         So you’ll excuse me when I say that the putative existential worries of the present – most notably the noise over climate change – seem pretty small potatoes to me.

         1. Gawd … don’t remind me of the ‘Anti-vaccination’ crowd who know NOTHING of Polio, and Pandemics. The knowledge being imparted to our children is shockingly lacking.

      3. Baby boomers are the first generation who did not pass on more prosperity and a better standard of living to those who came after. They failed to maintain the systems that allowed for increasing wealth and security over time. On the whole, whatever achievements they may have, they must collectively be considered a destructive force.

         Not surprising when one considers that before they were known as boomers, they were identified as “The Me Generation”.

4. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

   Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.

   The phenomenon starts with a lack of thankfulness for the gifts given.

   1. So much of that these days. Looking for utopia in all the wrong places.

   2. God is mocked by the ‘intelligentsia’. History teaches that never ends well. Excellent quotation and reminder.

5. Excellent article. I’ve seen it myself. 37 years as a grain inspector. Give some people a perfect sample of wheat and they look for something wrong with it and find it.

6. “Give some people a perfect sample of wheat and they look for something wrong with it and find it.”

   Unless you gave them a sample of perfect wheat, I’m missing your point.

   1. The article could be condensed to say: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

      There are two conceptions of “perfect”: (1) as good as it is possible to be and (2) something without fault. It is the second definition which gets people into trouble. The notion of something without fault exists only in the imagination and the imagination is not limited by reality.

      Some people who are obsessed with the notion of perfection but frustrated by reality have discovered a new strategy to attain perfection: redefining reality. You know what I am talking about: voodoo biology (trans-genderism), voodoo ethics (altruism), voodoo economics (socialism), etc.

   2. If you’re training or even supervising grain inspectors, you would see what I mean. There’s one or two in every crowd. I’m sure it’s not the only field where it occurs. The article is very interesting and accurately portrays the phenomena of which it speaks.

7. The three rivers going through Toronto were dead in the 1960s and now have fish once again, but CO2 is now deadly.

   1. And the air quality in Los Angeles is stunningly improved over the 1970’s despite ZERO mass transit and something near TRIPLING of the population. I know … I was there in the 70’s … and it looked like Beijing (on a good day).

   2. 3 sewers going through Toronto in the 60T’s you mean. Not far from here there was a house hold that dumped their shit pot in it every day. And they were not the only ones doing so. Yup, we have improved, just not enough on the common sense end of things.