[blackshoe]

Winstonm, on 2013-June-08, 07:31, said:

I have to agree with Blackshoe. Guns are not dangerous, kids are. What we need to do is ban couples from producing kids.

I've just finished Dan Brown's latest novel, Inferno. The premise of the story is that the root cause of our problems is not "excess CO₂" or some other AGW, or "radical Islam" or "Terrorism" or "Communism" or whatever bugaboo people want to focus on today. It's overpopulation. The solution? Reduce the population - and keep it down. I'll say no more about the book, except that it seems you've hit on the same solution Brown did.

[kenberg]

Dan Brown for President!

[mike777]

blackshoe, on 2013-June-08, 13:55, said:

I've just finished Dan Brown's latest novel, Inferno. The premise of the story is that the root cause of our problems is not "excess CO₂" or some other AGW, or "radical Islam" or "Terrorism" or "Communism" or whatever bugaboo people want to focus on today. It's overpopulation. The solution? Reduce the population - and keep it down. I'll say no more about the book, except that it seems you've hit on the same solution Brown did.

finished the book a few weeks ago

1) could not disagree more with his basic premise...too many people too few resources
2) he even gets transhumanists wrong....they are not just about dna and genes, but includes a merging of man and machine/computers. think art limbs, organs, blood, skin, etc... in other words our world today...

[blackshoe]

Didn't say I agreed with him. I thought it was a good read nevertheless.

[mike777]

blackshoe, on 2013-June-09, 23:46, said:

Didn't say I agreed with him. I thought it was a good read nevertheless.

ya you still say nothing......I note


fwiw ruin read for me....he gets so much so much wrong really wrong.

if the basic ...too much humans...too few resource very wrong than.....??


I don't give a crap about the art puzzle.

[barmar]

Sounds like Brown's premise is based on noticing that humans use technology to get around Darwinian principles. Natural selection is based in the basic idea that all the members of a species are competing for limited resources, and some (mostly the less fit members) will lose the competition -- they'll either die before procreating, have fewer children, or be less able to raise their children. But in modern human society, we're always looking for ways to level the playing field: if someone has poor vision, they can wear glasses; if they lose a limb, we have prosthetics. And we also have social programs that help people who can't afford to purchase basic living needs.

And all this has allowed our population to grow exponentially, and we've exterminated many other species and harmed the environment at a rate difficult for the ecosystem to adjust naturally.

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2013-June-10, 08:45, said:

<stuff>

+1

[y66]

The Reckoning -- The father of the Sandy Hook killer searches for answers. By Andrew Solomon.

[kenberg]

An interesting article. I have a variety of opinions, who doesn't, but bottom line is that it is far from clear that anything could have been done.

Opinion 1: I am not big on diagnoses such as "The kid has Asberger's". Yes, for mental health professionals this can be a useful guide, but for the kid and for the parents it can have the effect of putting him in a labeled box. The article suggests that some of the professionals had similar concerns. Instead of "he has Asberger's so he can't cope so we will teach him at home where he can avoid having to even try to cope" some were thinking that a structure that accepted his difficulties, whether ffrom Asberger's or whatever, but encouraged him to develop some coping skills might have been better. Maybe.

Opinion 2: By the time he is 18, and even before, I think that if he absolutely does not want to see his father who is no longer living in the same house, this has to be respected. Really it wasn't, even after he turned 18. It's true that he did not much see his father after 18 but there was continuing nagging at him about it.

Opinion 3: If someone examined my childhood they could easily find evidence that I was weird. I haven't killed anyone, so no one bothers to do this.

Opinion 4: Most adolescent males are a bit nuts. Maybe more than a bit.

Still, bottom line, I don't hold the parents responsible. A 20 year old is responsible for himself and really he has been for quite a while. If a 15 year old wants to do something really stupid or really evil, good luck in trying to stop him.

Yes, I am not fond of taking this obviously disturbed kid to the shooting range but I went to a shooting range and I never shot anyone.