Armed Man Takes Hostages At Discovery Channel HQ 1090
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samzenpus
from the man-vs-channel dept.
from the man-vs-channel dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The manifesto of the man holding the Discovery Channel hostage with a bomb has been released. He has fired shots and taken hostages. His main complaints are about overpopulation, religion and civilization. He wants them to avoid encouraging people to produce more 'disgusting human babies,' to get people to accept 'Malthus-Darwin science,' reject civilization and its 'disgusting religious-cultural roots,' and to stop 'ALL immigration pollution.'" The man has now been shot by police, and the hostages have been freed.
It's always refreshing (Score:4, Insightful)
It's always refreshing when Atheists are the psychos. I'm mean, c'mon! This guy is a representation of all atheists, right? :)
Ok you first... (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:3, Insightful)
This disturbed jerk has provided the Pave the Earth right wing with a new Emanuel Goldstein.
"SEE? We told you all the environmentalists hated humanity! This is all the proof we need that global warming is a hoax and that Yellowstone Park should be sold off to create timeshare resorts!"
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, judging any movement by it's most extreme elements is silly.
Re:Ok you first... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:His website's text (Score:4, Insightful)
well, obviously the guy was deranged, but some of his points are valid.
The problem is that most countries rely on ever increasing population for their economy to strive and the politicians to do well (starting with social security that is not funded by people other than the ones who get the money).
The world clearly could do better with a decreasing population, but most governments encourage exactly the opposite, so indeed right now humans are going to spread until they've taken over all the resources available and at the expense of pretty much all other lifeforms on the planet.
I'll be dead before then, but thinking about it makes me sad.
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:His concerns are valid (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention that if space ever becomes an issue people will simply have fewer kids to save themselves space in their house/apartment.
There are legitimate things to be worried about, but overpopulation isn't one of them.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
They made Communism their religion.
Dogmatic faith is a monster, whatever guise it wears.
It is the enemy of reason. As soon as people tell you to stop questioning an idea, beware their intentions.
Re:Malthus Primer (Score:5, Insightful)
The food supply curve is not exponential. It has exceeded exponential growth for a century, but only by consuming ever increasingly scarce resources to do so. Soil quality and aquifer levels are dramatically declining, soon even oil based fertilizers (that will become prohibitively expensive with peak oil) won't be enough to keep up production.
Malthus was failed to account for technological advances and declining human fertility. But he also failed to account for destruction of the soil and irrigation systems from over production. His ideas were far from perfect, but they do have merit.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:3, Insightful)
>>19 Kids and Counting, etc is disgusting.
Do you know that your great-grandparents, or their parents, probably had that many kids, right? That the 2 child household is a very recent development?
A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:5, Insightful)
What sucks about this is this guy has got a point, but that's lost because his actions are plain nuts and will drown out most mainstream discussion. But the point is that we are at a point where we are deeply concerned with climate change and resources on this planet, and people think that it's not at all irresponsible to have 19 children, and then the media encourages it!
China may be run by dictatorial fuckwads, but they have a point with their laws on having children. The entire society can't sustain it's population now, so adding another billion hungry mouths over 20 years is just going to fuck things up even more. With the scientific information I've been seeing as of late with global warming, potable water, oil, etc, I can actually envision near future where first world countries start considering birth limits. I understand the personal liberties some people feel they have a right to, but there comes a time when your insistence on having more children affects me and my family. If just you, me, and your spouse left on the planet, and there is only enough food to feed 3 people, and you and your spouse go and have a child without asking me, someone is going to have to give up food. You just impinged on me and my ability to stay alive by having a child. This is not a matter of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, this is good old fashioned primitive instinct of I want to live.
This guy might be an insane fuckwad, but he has a point. We should not be glorifying having 19 children when every new child strains our resources. Sure, we need to have babies to keep the species alive, but without resources to sustain them, there will be a huge population crash.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:3, Insightful)
I did not see anyplace in the article or the manifesto that states James Lee was an atheist. Besides, there is a difference between crazy person does something violent and crazy person does something violent in the name of religion (shooting doctors who perform abortion or bombing medical clinics). In this case, the person acted based on flawed environmental views, not because he was an atheist. In the case of shooting doctors, the shooter explicitly claims Christianity as justification for murder.
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is not a teabagger despite the fact that he hates immigrants. He isn't a liberal despite the fact that he likes the environment. He is a dead crazy guy because he took hostages. He didn't need any help from political partisans to achieve his stunning degree of lunacy, I'm pretty sure he got there all on his own.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:4, Insightful)
No, even back then 19 kids was not normal. More like 6-12 at the most.
Even so, back then, half the kids died before they reached 1 year of age. So it's not like there were families with a couple dozen kids running around.
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:4, Insightful)
Now you understand how Right-wingers feel at being labeled 'The American Taliban.' Seriously, judging any movement by it's most extreme elements is silly.
There are left/right-wingers, moderates, and centrists. The something-wingers are, by definition, the "most extremist elements".
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
I was questioning the idea that telling me to stop questioning an idea is a questionable idea.
What's the idea of telling me to stop?
Re:His concerns are valid (Score:2, Insightful)
Talking about limiting population growth is politically untouchable because of religion.
Everyone knows what the problem is. Nobody will deal with it.
Nature fixes overpopulation through starvation. We are in equilibrium with the cheap energy.
If the cheap energy ends, ultimately nature will fix things - no problem.
Mother nature is a real bitch when she's angry..
Re:Malthus Primer (Score:3, Insightful)
Where Malthus got it wrong was in not forseeing the economics pressures that drove innovation that in turn increased crop yields so that food supplies could indeed grow exponentially.
And where many economists get it wrong is in not realizing that this is not sustainable. You can print exponentially much money and delude yourself into believing that there is perpetual growth, but food production and population growth invariably will hit a wall. We're still growing because we're using up finite resources at an enormous rate; once they are gone, human populations will crash.
Re:Ok you first... (Score:5, Insightful)
He also advocated ending all immigration and the "Anchor baby Filth'. I'm not going to blame him in the right just for that, but if you read his manifesto enough to find your quote and ignored that part, you are deliberately lying. Lee was insane. Trying to use him to paint a political movement you don't like as the cause is a good way to get more violence going. I doubt you have enough discipline to control your hatred by actually seeking to speak the truth first and foremost, but I do urge just that on you - learn to care more about the truth and human life than you do about spreading lies and hatred. Actually reading Lee's manifesto with understanding reveals he thought many people were valueless or of negative value. Your own life is worth more than he thought - don't waste it in lies and prove him right.
Re:His concerns are valid (Score:1, Insightful)
Space isn't the problem per se. The photosynthetic limit is more the issue. It takes many hectares of land to feed each human. It is not a question of having enough room for people themselves, but rather having enough of all the inputs it takes to keep a human being alive. We cannot eat stones or air, and yet plants are able to convert minerals and gasses into carbohydrates, proteins, and fats that we can. There is vast debate on just what the sustainable human population is. I have seen serious attempts by scientists to estimate and the uncertainty is huge. I have seen estimates from scientists with decent reputations ranging from 500 million to 20 billion. But no one disagrees that a maximum exists.
There is also no doubt that many problems would be greatly simplified if the human population were, say, cut in half.
My problem is not with that core idea. It is with the people who would impose it. But I think voluntary population reduction (I've had a vasectomy and have no kids) is a very good thing.
One way or another, the human population will arrive at a stable, supportable level. But will it do it with or without terrible suffering?
And all of that said, it is pretty clear this person was not sane. The list of "important animals" in particular almost seems like a joke. I know of no test to empirically asses the relative "need" the Earth has for humans, "froggies," or squirrels.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe doesn't need growth limits. At their current rate of replacement, there won't be many Europeans left in this world in a few generations.
The US is not over-populated. The world is a different question and one that many 'experts' have been very, very wrong about many, many times.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:1, Insightful)
With the scientific information I've been seeing as of late with global warming, potable water, oil, etc, I can actually envision near future where first world countries start considering birth limits. I understand the personal liberties some people feel they have a right to, but there comes a time when your insistence on having more children affects me and my family.
This isn't necessarily true. The only reason it's true now is because the government subsidizes having children, and with social programs helps keep them alive.
We could always go back to the way things were done in the Middle Ages, because back then, a person's insistence on having lots of children only affected that family. If the family didn't have enough food to go around, some (or all) of them would starve. There were no food stamps back then, and only a little bit of charity.
But today, the government basically forces people with more resources to give some of those resources to families that have less, even if those families have tons of children they can't take care of themselves because they refused to use birth control and refused to abstain from sex. What we're now seeing in the USA is that a large portion of the children here are impoverished and hungry, even though there's plenty of food. This is because the middle (and upper) classes, who have plenty of money for food (even if they lose a job, they have savings), choose not to have many children, and are able to sustain themselves just fine, but the lower classes, including many illegal immigrants, choose to have tons of children even when they're broke and unemployed, thinking the government will help them (which it does--food stamps, WIC, Section 8 housing, free medical care at ERs, etc.). These kids grow up with no education because of bad parenting, and at best become just like their parents (living off social programs and having tons more kids), or at worst become gang members and criminals and cause even more problems for society. At some point, something's going to break. A large part of the population is already hopping mad about all the social programs which do nothing but breed more social problems. Obviously, one guy went over the edge....
Another interesting fact is that, even with all the starving children in America, there's tons of couples who want to adopt children because they're infertile, and end up either going without, or traveling to 3rd-world countries to bring babies back home. So there's no reason for poor people in America to struggle with their extra children; they could easily put them up for adoption (esp. if they're still infants, not if they're 15 and in a gang!), but the poor people again refuse to ever do that. Usually, the people who give up their children for adoption are middle class or higher, and accidentally got pregnant and realize they weren't in a position to be a good parent, and decided to have the child and give it to a good couple to raise rather than abort it. The poor people almost never think about whether they're capable of being "good parents".
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of his points are valid, but I don't think telling any lifeform that their babies are disgusting is good marketing, considering any successful species is pretty much hard-wired to love babies..
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Given that you and your wife are having 6 or more children, I am curious of whether you ever considered overpopulation.
Do you think each of your children should also have 6 children?
What fraction of your resources do you expect your children and grandchildren to use.
What do you think the maximum occupancy of the earth is?
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:4, Insightful)
And how Muslims in NYC feel when people try to punish them for 9/11.
Re:Why discovery channel (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone who wants to see shows about real science and nature, and not a bunch of stupid melodramas about boneheads building crappy motorcycles?
This guy should have shot whichever person at Discovery was responsible for American Chopper.
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is not a teabagger despite the fact that he hates immigrants. He isn't a liberal despite the fact that he likes the environment. He is a dead crazy guy because he took hostages. He didn't need any help from political partisans to achieve his stunning degree of lunacy, I'm pretty sure he got there all on his own.
The mantra of fanboys everywhere goes something like "never miss an opportunity to associate a nut with any group you don't like. It furthers the whole 'us against them' bullshit that is so easy to exploit. This is so important that a false association is better than none."
Re: (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:3, Insightful)
The irony of your comment is that the so-called "Pave the Earthers" who want to sell off Yellowtone Park to create timeshares are no more representative of the right wing than is this disturbed jerk representative of the left. You engage in the same partisan misrepresentation which you ridicule, though with opposing polarity.
Re:This is why... (Score:3, Insightful)
> This is why radical atheism should be considered to be a religion. Blind faith in ANYTHING can bring irrationality. Yes, not collecting stamps is not a hobby, but avoiding touching a stamp could be considered to be a hobby.
Avoiding touching a stamp is not a hobby: it is OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) -- a mental illness.
Likewise that man's defining characteristic is not religion -- he is mentally ill.
Blind faith is not the bringer of irrationality: blind faith is irrationality in itself. Saying this mad man is a man of faith is a tautology, IMHO.
And let me object to the "radical atheism" label, while we are at it. How many degrees of "no god" are there to make someone a radical atheist?
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree with the Tea Party and their hangers-on in matters of "fact" that they claim. Things like America being founded as a Christian nation. That religion is the answer to America's ills (hint: we're fighting terrorists who believe the same fucking thing, only a slightly different religion). Pretty much ANYTHING Sarah Palin states as fact.
I don't like the Democrats or Republicans, and I try my damndest to not be partisan. The current Tea Party is based on misinformation and exploiting emotions rather than anything factual.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
People gathering together for a cause isn't an issue. It's when someone creates an element of unquestionable authority that you must submit to.
Whether that's Skygod Crankypants, Sauron, or Mao.
Dogmatism is a breeding ground for such "authorities".
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure the Right will be just as understanding about the fact that this man does not represent liberal environmentalism as the Left was over the fact that Michael Enright's drunken attack on an Arab driver didn't represent conservative opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque.
Karma's a bitch.
Re:Ok you first... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally think having that many kids is pretty damn weird, but who the hell are you to judge? It's not like they're on welfare and you're paying for it--apparently, they were fine financially before the reality stuff. The US isn't an overpopulated nation, either. Our birth rate is below replacement, so we can tolerate the occasional outlier--and "outlier" is exactly what these people are--like this.
"In jail?" Fuck you.
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering the guy who attacked the arab while drunk worked as part of a group supporting the ground zero mosque and was a devout leftist, you're going to have problems running that one by. This guy however takes many points of the hyper-leftist environmentalism an ran straight forward with them.
But hey, what does it matter? The left have been screaming wildly and blindly for the last year that all members of the tea party are conservative, and racist.
Re:His concerns are valid (Score:3, Insightful)
No, most of them are just a burden. People need education and upbringing to turn them into resources, otherwise they're only good for dumb manual labor which can be replaced by automation (and a lot of them are actually a big negative, as they consume resources and cause problems, called "crime"). Turning people into productive resources requires a very large investment of time and energy.
And no, we don't have plenty of food. Fresh water is dwindling, oil is dwindling (needed as fertilizer), desertification is increasing, arable land is decreasing (for some strange reason, most people want to live in places where food grows well, so farms are constantly being turned into subdivisions). Wild spaces like the Amazon are disappearing.
We need to stop the population explosion until we have the technology to build giant space habitats and terraform other worlds. When we can do that, then we can have lots of kids to fill up all that space.
Re:His concerns are valid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is, you can't just refuse to give a hungry child food and rant for 5 paragraphs about politics and the middle ages. These children can't help their parents' stupidity and need to be helped. I'm not sure what the solution is though because you're right, they keep pumping out babies and we keep feeding them. There has to be a penalty for the mother to stop the cycle. Forced abortions are a touchy issue what with China but if you're not willfully breaking the law by having more kids then you have nothing to worry about.
A lot of the problem is due to pervasive Catholicism in latin america. Otherwise good people who work hard think that it's a sin to use birth control, and their children suffer.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:3, Insightful)
"But today, the government basically forces people with more resources to give some of those resources to families that have less"
What does it mean? Why do some people 'have' more resources? Are they stronger? Do they plow larger fields? Or maybe they have better-bred cows?
Some people have more resources because they live in a fucking society, which is supported by people with less resources. So stop whining and go to live on an uninhabited island. Where no-one will take away your precious resources.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:2, Insightful)
Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or a set of beliefs concerning the origin and purpose of the universe.
[dictionary.com, wikipedia.com] Not that "religion" is necessarily the best way to describe communism, but religion doesn't require a deity. Besides, their point was that they made it a religion in that they accepted its ultimate goodness and truth on faith, which in turn allowed them to commit terrible acts in its name.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:2, Insightful)
if i grew up with 18 brothers and sisters, the last thing i would want for my children would probably be a similar environment... those 19 kids and counting all might choose to not have ANY children.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at history you will find plenty of evidence of atheists doing unpleasant things. Pol Pot for a start.
The question when we assign blame to ideologies is did the ideology lead the the unpleasant actions. Pol Pot and Stalin and so on didn't kill people because they were atheists. They killed people because they were radical communists, and communists need to have a look at their ideology and ask themselves why every time communists get sweeping powers they do such unpleasant things.
Same goes for Christianity, Islam, every ideology / religion. Christianity encourages the respect of authority, the widely held conception of faith is dangerous, the idea that salvation through grace as opposed to works is dangerous. Some of the bad things people have done in history have been a direct result of their interpretation of Christianity and when that repeatedly happens people will begin to wonder if the ideology / religion itself is a good thing.
Some ideologies are better than others, and if we measure them on their track record it is pretty darn clear that most religions are not conducive to a good social order. Communists should not go around acting all surprised when people point to Stalin and Pol Pot when they talk about their ideology and Christians cant complain when the Crusades and Slavery get brought up. That is the history of those ideologies and ideologies are judged on those histories.
Which brings us nicely to atheism. By it's very nature atheism doesn't do diddly. Go ask your average theist and they will tell you that atheism has nothing to offer, and they are in essence right. No one gets anything out of being an atheist. It doesn't compel anyone to do anything. Are you compelled to do stuff because you don't believe in the tooth fairy? Or Thor? Of course not.
This guy was a Malthusian whack job, you want to complain about that ideology have a field day. But suggesting that atheism had anything to do with his actions is just silly.
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of his points are valid,
WTF? Some of his points? Are you arguing that civilization/technology is bad ... on an internet forum? If you're arguing that we need to "reduce the surplus population", well, you first buddy.
Malthus was wrong. Overpopulation has not lead to unsurmountable obstacles, nor is the human population growing out of control. The worlds population is better fed than ever before (more people are overweight than underweight). Diseases are better controlled than ever before. High population density is usually a sign of a wealthy area, these days. This guy was a tool, and the only good thing about him is that he's dead.
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
You know who else screams wildly and blindly besides the left?
Re:I lol'd at the contradictions (Score:5, Insightful)
You're kidding, right? A modern war does not reduce the net world population except in the very short term. I challenge you to demonstrate otherwise. After the two bloodiest and most destructive wars in recent history, WWI and WWII, the population tripled within two generations, as pointed out by our illustrious manifesto writer du jour.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:3, Insightful)
Claims that overpopulation is why we have poverty, environmental problems, etc and predictions that continued growth will lead to disaster have time and again been shown to be dead wrong, from Malthus to Ehrlich to the present day.
Ultimately the core of the message is selfish- claiming that for some reason your present consumption patterns should be protected by preventing other people from living and that the responsibility for society's problems lies not on our unwise actions but in the fact that other people exist.
Technology allows us to have greater freedom in our consumption patterns and our impact on the environment. Hunter-gatherers largely had little choice how much environmental impact per person they had; with modern technology (genetics, materials science, etc) we can grow enough food to feed a person within a rather small area and with a rather small ecological footprint and house a person much more efficiently than could be done three hundred years ago (think of the resources and pollution involved in heating a modern well-insulated home versus burning wood continually at multiple inefficient fireplaces in each drafty house for the majority of the year)- or we can waste more land and materials, pollute more air and water, and manufacture larger piles of trash per capita than people three hundred years ago could possibly have conceived of mankind being able to do.
If people chose to live in a way which involved wise stewardship of resources- re-engineering cities to be walkable, using clean public transport on those occasions when it is necessary to go further, reducing demand for consumer junk which rapidly gets chucked in landfills, separating different kinds of waste materials and waste water at a household level so recycling, composting, and water treatment could be done more effectively, eating less meat, eating foods in season, etc.- and concentrated more on using and developing new technologies to achieve a more sustainable lifestyle, then the planet could very comfortably sustain at least twenty times the current world population. Urban living could, if done with this goal in mind, have only a tiny ecological impact per person. But if people choose to use technology to allow them to waste more, it could with more technology and automation reach the point where just two people on earth could be battling each other for resources and be beyond the planet's carrying capacity.
Greed, violence, and disrespect for the planet and for others are the problems- not overpopulation. Yes, the planet couldn't sustain tens of billions of people with our present average consumption levels and average environmental impact per person- but that means we need to change our lifestyles and the way we treat the environment, not that we need to prevent others from living.
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:3, Insightful)
Things like America being founded as a Christian nation.
It wasn't exactly Christian, no. Religion/Deism, and the Bible, were pretty big deals back then. Let's not ignore that part of history. Yes, I know about Jefferson's Bible. Yes, I know about other Deists. Yes, I know a lot of people were not "Christians." Yes, I know a lot of Christians want to Christian-ize history. I'm against all that stuff. I'm also against atheism-izing them if they weren't atheists.
only a slightly different religion
Slightly? Either you are being facetious or you don't have much of a clue about the differences :)
Re:Malthus Primer (Score:3, Insightful)
Heh. It's funny that you can completely accept that Maltheus was overreacting because he failed to allow for the advancement of technology, and in the same breath claim that we're all doomed because we're running out of X. Maltheus would have been proud.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a child protection issue not a financial issue. There's no way that the parents can pay adequate attention to each child. They educate each other (public school is evil etc), take care of each other, and fend for themselves most of the time. There is such a thing as a criminally irresponsible parent (leave your kid in a locked car for example).
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
"The man has now been shot by police,..." (Score:2, Insightful)
Good.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:2, Insightful)
"You sound like a Marxist."
No, I'm not a Marxist. I considered myself a mild socialist.
"No, they've benefited by having parents that taught them how to better manage their own resources"
Again, what are the 'resources' you speak of? Is it muscle power or knowledge of argiculture?
What are you going to do if all the illegal immigrants in the fields, garbage collectors on the street and all other low-earning professions suddenly quit and move to another planet?
Answer: a famine when you suddenly find out that your C++ skills are not useful for bread baking.
More realistic answer: a redistribution of income, so some of the 'better' folks lose their income and are forced to fill the low-paying jobs.
"You seem to think that the poor people somehow contributed to the middle classes, and helped raise their children. They didn't, except perhaps by cleaning their toilets sometimes. The poor people aren't the ones who built society, it was the people with education who managed resources better who did."
Then you are an idiot.
Significant parts of US society were formed by poor immigrants. Who later formed your precious magical middle class.
Due Process (Score:2, Insightful)
This guy was a nut, sure. Protect innocent civillians, ok. Kill him on the spot?
It's not the first time US 'Law Enforcement Officers' have killed someone on the street for a supposed crime. What happened to criminal jurisprudence?
Re:His concerns are valid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:3, Insightful)
When you put kids in a dangerous environment without any food/money, and reject and scorn them as a society so they have to fend for themselves, they don't just die off cleanly. They form gangs.
They would murder people, destroy neighborhoods, have no education and speak an unintelligible street slang, and be generally useless to society. Except instead of being fed with tax money, they're fed by robbing you at knifepoint and taking everything you have.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:2, Insightful)
When you put kids in a dangerous environment without any food/money, and reject and scorn them as a society so they have to fend for themselves, they don't just die off cleanly. They form gangs.
So what's your solution? Give them money, so they raise more kids to be gang members?
they're fed by robbing you at knifepoint and taking everything you have.
Where I live, anyone trying that would simply be shot. Robberies (esp. with knives) aren't so common here in states where you don't know who's carrying a gun. But I guess in states or countries where you're not legally allowed to defend yourself, that could be a problem.
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:3, Insightful)
You disagree with pretty much anything Sarah Palin states as fact? Really? I don't know how you can come to that conclusion reasonably. Do you doubt that she has a daughter with down's syndrome? Do you think she wasn't governor of Alaska? Do you think America should stay a democracy? Do you respect George Washington? I'm going to guess that you actually agree with the vast majority of what Sarah Palin believes.
Secondly, your information gathering skills must really suck, because the common thread between the tea-party members isn't religion, it's economic policy. If religion alone were capable of starting such a big political movement, Pat Robertson would have been president. This is stuff you can figure out for yourself if you apply yourself to understanding. As another measurement of the religious nature of the tea-party, consider Mike Huckabee, who makes a point of appealing directly to the religious elements of the Republican party, and does it well. He doesn't do as well in the tea-party, though [guardian.co.uk]. Typically he can pull around 30% of the Republican party, which about matches the religious sector of the Republicans (and also explains why Republicans talk about religion but don't do much about it). In the tea-party poll, he only managed to get 4%, whereas Romney, who markets himself on economic issues, did much better.
In other words, I'm not saying I'm 100% right with what I just said, but you need to make your analysis more carefully and more nuanced. The way you're doing it now is blinding you to things.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:3, Insightful)
Atheists don't believe in a deity, but they might still have some spiritual component
Yes, but that's because the word "spiritual" is completely fucking useless, and can mean absolutely anything.
Buddhists are atheists, for example.
No, they're not. You may have noticed that the word "atheism" contains the word "theism". I know, it's hard to see, but it's in there.
Funny enough, the ancient Greeks used to refer to Christians as atheists, because they didn't believe in the Greek Gods. If you're going to use such a limited definition of the word, you're making the same mistake the Greeks did.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:3, Insightful)
Buddhists are atheists, for example.
No, they're not. You may have noticed that the word "atheism" contains the word "theism". I know, it's hard to see, but it's in there.
Yeah, try actually looking to see what "theism" means. It means a belief in a deity. Buddha isn't a god. Hence Buddhists are atheists with spiritual beliefs (such as reincarnation).
I don't know what "definition" of [a]theism you're using, but it isn't the correct one.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:3, Insightful)
A Turk living in Germany is a German in the same way that a Dane living in Greenland is an Eskimo.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:2, Insightful)
One of the large problems with religion, is that people use it to justify their prejudices. For the sake of example, Christian scriptures, and the New Testament in particular, promotes friendship and kindness to everyone, regardless of who they are and what they do. Somehow, people are able to build doctrine around these scriptures, which justify the bombing of abortion clinics, or the hatred of Jews and those of African decent. It makes absolutely no sense, but people feel vindicated about this sort of belligerent ideology, because someone has shown them which individual passages to take out of context and focus on. It really seems to me, as though people start with bad ideas and build their religion around that, rather than building their ideas around their religion.
By definition, religion can have no solid proof. It wouldn't be faith, if we could prove the whole thing scientifically. Personally, when I encounter a discrepancy between my faith and my science, then I can only assume that my understanding of one or the other is incorrect. Science has a history of being wrong, and faith has a history of being misinterpreted. I am comfortable with worshiping God, without really understanding precisely what He is.
At the end of the day, one has to acknowledge that something, be it anywhere from inanimate to super-intelligent, at some point in history, had the capacity to cause the universe to exist. From there, you can either choose to make no opinion of what that thing is/was, or pick a religious view that you can reconcile with demonstrable science.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:4, Insightful)
A Turk living in Germany is a German in the same way that a Dane living in Greenland is an Eskimo.
You're conflating several different things here, making your point meaningless. Europe is a region. Germany is a nation. Eskimo is a culture/race. It's quite possible for somebody to belong to all of those three at the same time.
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, if all Muslims are terrorists, then all Christians are abortion clinic bombers and all catholics are child molesters.
Manifesto response (Score:1, Insightful)
You and your anchor baby ain't no worse than mammals, so let's start by killing you at the Discovery Channel.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting to note which people oppose the simple solutions to this problem: sex education, contraceptives, and abortion.
Generally it's the same people complaining about the situation.
omfg!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The crackpot's web site (Score:3, Insightful)
See, that's the thing though...his base intentions are actually quite noble; it's the completely bassackwards way he went about trying to accomplish his goals (as well as how he attempted to present his arguments) that are crazy.
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Malthus merely got pushed out and the curve extended. We found a new resource (oil) that allowed the curve to move substantially. Unless we find another resource to replace it, we'll eventually hit the curve again.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, this whole thread has devolved into fucked-up "BLAME THE POOR!" bullshit, so I'm not going to argue with you past pointing this out: in states where guns are readily available, THEY ROB YOU AT GUNPOINT.
And you know what? The immensely greater lethality of firearms, and the ease of learning to use them means that, no matter how AWESOME and FULL OF TESTOSTERONE you are, in a confrontation involving guns on both sides, you're just about as likely to end up being shot as the other guy.
P.S. For anyone who bought the "robberies aren't as common in states with permissive gun laws" line, check out the statistics on violent crime and cross-reference by gun ownership statistics. If that's TLDR, I'll let you in on the twist ending - MOAR GUNZ != LESS CRIMEZ!
I wanted to make a joke out of this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:2, Insightful)
He rebutted your "solution", so it's your turn to answer your question. He's just saying that giving them help is not making things worst, and actually pointing that you need to slow down the birth rate of people that will not care for their childs education, well being and economic needs.
Re:A kernal of sense in an insane mind (Score:2, Insightful)
Where I live, anyone trying that would simply be shot. Robberies (esp. with knives) aren't so common here in states where you don't know who's carrying a gun. But I guess in states or countries where you're not legally allowed to defend yourself, that could be a problem.
Yes robberies in the states with knives are not common. Since weapons are so easy to get here in the states our criminals have them more than the people who can legally possess them. In the states you get robbed and gun point and most likely shot as well.
Re:Thanks a lot, Jackass (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, I don't even know who Malthus is, but you should probably research a little bit before you talk.
First, more people are not overweight than underweight. That might be the case in your country, but I assure you that your country does not constitute anywhere near the majority of the planet. The number of obese (dangerously overweight) people in the world number about 300 million (from WHO). The number of malnourished (dangerously underweight) people number over 900 million (from the Wikipedia article on malnutrition).
Maybe you are right about diseases being better controlled. But I for one can't find any data on the rates of pandemics. So who really knows. Our understanding is better, but our odds of world wide contagion is much higher due to the international travel.
Finally, here is the list of the largest cities by population density. Stop me when you find one that doesn't have a huge poverty problem: Mumbai, Kolkata, Karachi, Lagos, Shenzhen, Seoul (maybe here?), Taipei, Chennai, Bogota, Shanghai, Lima, Beijing, Delhi, Kinshasa, Manila, Tehran, Jakarta, Tianjin, Bangalore, Ho Chi Minh City. Well, that's the top 20 anyway. There is wealth in many of these cities, but for the vast majority they also have crushing poverty.
That guy may have been a tool, but he was crazy and is now dead. There's nothing we can do about him. But education is available for the rest of us. Please make use of it.
Re:It's always refreshing (Score:3, Insightful)
Some modern Christians have little in common with historical Christianity, but many if not most have plenty in common. If you attend a church then you are organised, like historical Christianity. If you think that it is grace and not works that are most pleasing to YHWH then you have something in common with historical Christianity.
My intent is not to use ideology pejoratively, nor do I think I was suggesting Christianity was an ideology, although maybe I got sloppy with language at one point or another. I have an ideology so if I'm being pejorative about them I'm insulting myself. To be fair that wouldn't be uncalled, my ideology has had problems, they are just nothing to do with atheism.
Before we talk about atheism spawning ideology we are going to need to agree what atheism is. If atheism is the assertion there is no god then it is true one can draw conclusions from this statement. I would term an atheist as someone who has not been compelled to a belief in God. If you want to term the ideologies that result from the belief there is no god 'atheist ideologies' you are at liberty to do so, what I don't understand is why you think that term is particularly informative.
To what extent can we say that Fascism is drawn from atheism as opposed to Thomism being drawn from Christianity? In the case of National Socialism which played a larger role in the less desirable attributes of the ideology, atheism (which most National Socialists were less than enamoured with) or anti-semitism which has a history drawn primarily from a particular application of the source text of Christianity?
Atheism hasn't learned from "it's" mistakes because it hasn't made any. It cant make any. This isn't a particular achievement on atheism's part. Belief in Santa hasn't done much by way of significant harm or good throughout history either. Both positions are essentially devoid of direct consequences and as you have pointed out at most have secondary effects through other ideas. The negative content of those ideas is almost exclusively drawn from sources other than atheism because atheism says virtually nothing.
I wouldn't assert that atheism is an alternative to ideology. I have an ideology and it isn't atheism, it is a mixture of Western social democracy, the enlightenment and secular humanism. It has nothing to do with atheism. It is also not without it's problems in history. Problems I'm well aware of and have studied.
That was the whole point of my post. I was responding to someone who had swapped something which was an ideology (politically active religiously motivated political ideologies) with something that was not (atheism).
If when you talk about Christianity you aren't talking something which has a drastic impact on your politics then when you use the word Christianity and I use the word Christianity we aren't talking about the same thing. When I use that word I'm referring to a representative depiction of the religion of about 1 billion of my fellow humans. It is a socially conservative, politically active and includes a moral philosophy which has a dramatic impact on the social and political reality of most Western states and has (sometimes for better, usually for worse) had a significant impact on a variety of related political ideologies.
If your ideology isn't inspired by Christianity in any way good for you. If it is, then I think it is important to take a good look at history and make darn sure you don't repeat the myriad mistakes committed as a direct result of specific interpretations of your religion's source text.
Re:Get Hell off the Planet!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe women are hard-wired to love babies (mostly), but I don't think men wanting lots of sex translates to them "loving babies" at least in the abstract.
Once they show up though, something kicks in. I guess either you're going to respond with love or you're not. When my daughter was born, I was flying back from a show and feeling complete dread. When I walked in and saw my wife holding her, you could almost feel the tectonic plates in my brain shifting. 20 years later, it doesn't change. I see my accomplished, beautiful daughter and I still see the little purplish monkey-looking thing my wife was holding that morning.
Now when she was 13 she was a total snotty pain in the ass, but I still would have jumped in front of a bus for her.
Re:BS (Score:3, Insightful)
"introducing and integrating new groups has not destroyed the things that made Australia great."
Introducing and integrating is great. The US, for one, is a country where the introduction and integration of new groups has led to adaptability, resilience, and strength far beyond many ethnically monolithic nations. However, what the poster above was referring to is when outside groups do not integrate and what he fears is if and when they fundamentally change those things that make a country great.
IMO, this is the crux of the current illegal immigration debate in the US, though it is frequently couched in other terms. Australia assuredly has fewer problems with this as they are surrounded by water. Furthermore, they do not share a porous land border with, for instance, an underdeveloped and corrupt nation where the kidnapping, torture, and murder of travelers, citizens, police, military personnel, journalists, and even public officials is a daily occurrence. In addition, I do not think the Australian government is actively assisting in the isolation of those immigrant groups by inhibiting their assimilation the way the US government has done and still is doing.
The US and many other countries have done an excellent job of integrating their immigrant populations in the past. However, there are new issues to contend with. Unprecedented levels of illegal immigrants are pushing for isolation within their new borders, whether geographically or through language segregation, and even receive assistance from vote hungry politicians. Those politicians are catering to non-citizens and in doing so are not only ignoring and violating established laws with impunity but are also endangering their true citizens' lives, their property, current and future financial prospects, and even the national economy. Furthermore, wide and growing support for subversive political ideas, like the "Reconquista" of the southwestern US, give a glimpse into the radical departure from the norm that new immigration problems have taken.
In short, immigration is nothing new to the US and many other countries. However, the motivations and subsequent interactions of immigrants with their new government and their new neighbors have radically changed. Don't make the mistake of equating similar situations, especially in light of glaring evidence that the circumstances and results are fundamentally different from your past experience.