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Rival Green Groups Bid To Snatch .eco Domain
Peace Corps Library writes "BBC reports that two rival environmental groups are lining up supporters to try to take control of the new .eco domain aimed at green groups. In March, former US vice president Al Gore backed a bid by the California group Dot Eco to operate the .eco TLD, but now a Canadian environmental group known as Big Room has launched a competing bid to manage it. 'We're two different applicants with two different business ideas. Ours is to sell domain names to raise funds for organizations who can effect change,' says Minor Childers, co-founder of Dot Eco. The group has already entered into contracts with its supporters — such as the Sierra Club and the Alliance for Climate Protection — to give away 57% of its profits from sales. Big Room also plans to generate money from the sale of .eco domain names to fund sustainability projects around the world, however, the consortium, which includes WWF International and Green Cross International — founded in 1993 by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, also believes that .eco could be used as a labeling system to endorse companies with green credentials. Despite having differences about a model for .eco, both groups will 'definitely have to sit down' together at some point, says Childers. 'We could be one of the biggest contributors to environmental causes anywhere in the world.'"
Forgive my cynicism but in my experience, humans are not altruistic at all. Like monkeys, we do what we do because it benefits us.
While I fully support green causes for my own selfish reasons (my children), I am skeptical about the motivations of "green" groups. They seem to be using green as a fashion statement and an identity, and don't seem all that motivated to be effective.
But if given a chance to push us around for not being green... they're good at that.
Can't we just create the "Green Police" that ecosopher Pentti Linkola recommended, and be done with these irksome charities?
...'cause Al Gore invented both the Internet and ecology!
organizations should have claim to an entire TLD? Even if they "sit down together", that's still an awful lot of authority being placed in the hands of a very few people. I suspect that there are some other outfits that might want to have a say in this.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The further you get from .com the less the domain matters(at least among non-country coded TLDs). .com is the best, .net and .org are ok, things like .gov are niche, and pretty much anything else is either a once-off gimmick(pidgin.im is clever; but the world's set of IM programs might consume a few dozen domains, total) or just a slum domain that only search engine crawlers will find directly.
.com/.net/.org addresses, the only thing that matters is whether you have a decent rank on common search engines.
"Green" is all the rage at the moment(or, at least, greenwashing is); but I don't see that changing the basic fact that, for anything besides highly recognisable
spoil the Net, don't they? I mean, come on. Wouldn't dot-org suffice for things ecological in a sense?
There are lots of TLDs that no one ever thinks about and hardly ever use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains
When was the last time you visited a .biz site? Have you ever found a position using the .jobs TLD?
How cool is it that the TLD for mobile devices is longer than the usual 3 letter TLD?
Found a lawyer or doctor using the .pro TLD lately? Could you point someone to a good travel agent on the .travel TLD?
Face it, there are only 5 real, non-national TLDs: .com, .org, .edu, .Net, and .gov. All the others are just a waste of time.
whichever can can show that their servers will run on 100% green energy with downtime on par with most other major sites.
If organizations with "green" or conversationalist initiatives as basically your sole customers, why would you charge more than you need to for a domain name and then hand some of the profits back to the same set of companies? In this case, wouldn't it be best to just lower your prices and run as a straight non-profit?
Or for all the giving back bullshit, is this yet another poorly conceived attempt at cashing in on the popularity of the green movement? Who am I kidding? This yet another poorly conceived attempt at cashing in on the popularity of the green movement.
Just how many domains do they think they're going to be selling? At competitive rates you'd have to sell tens of thousands just to keep a single person employed to maintain the TLD, never mind having some money to give away.
Anyone here old enough to remember the first ecology movement? It, too, was lame, with it's own lame, green flag. Just green-n-white bars like the US flag, but a silly character in the middle of the field.
Being good stewards, yes. Endocrinating young children into fairy tales, no. Things like Captain Planet get under my skin. The science they point to is grey at best, and it all serves political parties.
I mean, whether it's hotter than usual, or colder than usual, BOTH are a sign of ManMadeGlobalWarming(TM) for which money must be sent to Washington. That's not science, that's religion!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
On the flipside, it would be kind of nice to have a .nut domain for all the right-wing neocons and nutjobs out there. It would be easier to just block anything in that TLD,... ;-)
Will anyone even know its there, or care?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd like to see Mr Gore's financial connections to Dot Eco.
See, your message of world-saving altruism is corrupted when everything you're preaching ends up somehow making you the big $$ personally.
-Styopa
As in $$$$$. Sheesh. The usual pattern: From cause to movement to racket. And then the bureaucracy takes it all over. Repeat as needed.
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
China is their model. Our model I dare say. Modern population growth is preposterous. Unsustainable doesn't even begin to describe it.
We have too many people on this planet as it is, and there's no good way to get them off the planet, the energy requirements are simply too great. If we're going to colonize, we won't be sending more than a few thousand to start the colony, and then it will not be able to support any significant migrants from a Terran perspective. Population control is essential.
I'd mod that up if I could. It's not rocket science to figure that one out. More consumers require more resources and produce more waste. Is that so hard to admit?
Which is why we should deprecate them and turn toward country level TLD's. Let individual countries have control over what domains are allowable. If a company, say Google, has a server in the US, their .com name would end up as google.com.us, if they have a server in Germany, it would be google.com.de. A government web site in the US would be congress.gov.us or in Germany, bundestag.gov.de.
This could even extend to political organizations with in a State. So, in the US, fl.gov.us would be the root to all of the Florida state government web sites, where as ut.gov.us would be for Utah's state government.
There are plenty more examples, but it comes down to de-centralizing control over DNS to the lowest level of political representation.
Historically, the most effective methods of reducing population have been illnesses and wars. Therefore we should start a world war with biological weapons. That will certainly reduce the population. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
As for the World Widlife federation, the most notable thing I can remember from them is getting the WWF wrestling to change it's name.
Does panda wrestling mean anything to you?
Instead of creating new domains, they should be recycling old ones.
I am disappointed that www.steve.jobs doesn't resolve.
# dig @a.root-servers.net eco ns
[...]
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 54643
[...]
. . . for revenge!
He is still mega-pissed that he didn't become the President of the United States, so he is planning to get his revenge . . . on the whole world!
First he mesmerized folks around the world with his global warming movie. Now, he wants a TLD, which will enable him to wield even more control!
What's next? Death for us all . . . by snoo snoo!?!?!
. . . and where did they get this 57% number . . . from a ketchup bottle? With a keystone shaped label . . . obviously the Freemasons are also involved.
I don't want to be an alarmist, but maybe we should all just take a look at all this evidence . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
No, seriously.
Given his history I suppose it's reasonable that he's against the burning of carbon-based fuels. Still, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of my nice comfy eco-friendly hammock being officially endorsed by the dream-ripper.
Something like that may be happening. Malaria has been out of control since the beginning of time, in Africa. AIDS took off like a wildfire recently (recent, in historical terms). The flu strains are adapting, and growing more virulent. Overcrowding has made it so EASY for biological agents to spread. Who knows which virus or germ is mutating right now, to strike us in the next 2 to 10 years?
I expect a major die off of the human species, sometime soon. The only real questions are, will we preserve our science and learning, and, how will the survivors be affected psychologically?
Be a hell of a thing if a major pandemic destroyed civilization.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
It's enlightening to see that when environmental groups, and especially Al Bore (see for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Investment_Management about his carbon trading hedge fund, so that's why he's pushing it in congress), pops up in the news these days, it has to do with money. Of course, they claim that some of the money will go to "save the world". Right.
What about "steve.jobs" without "www"?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
.....and it's pretty simple to catch.
"two rival environmental groups"
Maybe it's me, but there's ONE earth.
One planet, one sky, one environment. Rival? Work together you superficial bastards.
...umberto.eco
The CB App. What's your 20?
Or, you know, development. Europe had unsustainable growth before its current unsustainable shrinking, and wars aren't what reduced growth (hell, think baby boomers)
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Democrat -> Liberal -> Socialist -> Nazi -> Communist
Look into the Nazi party 'green' initiatives. Look at the Democrat party 'green' initiatives. Duck and cover.
Just shows that the primary reason for these new tld's is to generate money for registries, not to serve any need for new domains. Anyone company who wants to portray themselves as "green" will have to buy a new eco domain, even though they will continue to use their .com domain as well (and will probably keep the .com domain as their primary address)
Modern population growth is preposterous. Unsustainable doesn't even begin to describe it.
There is no 1st world country with an unsustainable population growth. The problem is mainly the population growth in 3rd world countries and in the lower classes. It is ironic for me that the persons who should actually get children (well off college educated people) are the ones that are the least likely to get children.
We need educated people in the future to solve our problems. Yet it seems that most educated societies are almost experiencing a population implosion.
And I didn't even know that the World Wrestling Federation was green!!
This space for rent, inquire within.
...and that is .eco is already spoken for:
Top-Level Domain: ECO
Domain ID: DW-ECO
Root Administrator: dotWORLDS [DW]
Zone contact: domainmgt@dotworlds.net
NS1.ECO. A 72.55.140.187
NS2.ECO. A 72.55.140.180
Top-Level Domain: ECO
Domain ID: PR-3-ECO
Root Administrator: Herman Xennt [PR-3]
Zone contact: Unknown
ECO. NS NS1.VRX.NET.
ECO. NS NS2.VRX.NET.
NS1.VRX.NET. A 199.166.24.1
NS1.VRX.NET. A 199.166.27.6
NS2.VRX.NET. A 199.166.28.10
Top-Level Domain: ECO
Domain ID: WR-ECO
Root Administrator: WorldRoot (AGN Domain Name Service, Inc) [WR]
Zone contact: Unknown
ECO. NS NS1.VRX.NET.
ECO. NS NS2.VRX.NET.
NS1.VRX.NET. A 199.166.24.1
NS1.VRX.NET. A 199.166.27.6
NS2.VRX.NET. A 199.166.28.10
I've been watching the farce that is the new ICANN process. They seem to think that the only test for a new top-level domain suffix is that it will make money for the corporate owner.
I think it's bullshit. The new domains they have added so far - .aero, .coop, .museum, .biz, .info, .pro, .jobs, .tel - all suck. Okay, I quite like to be able to type http://british.museum/ - but .biz and .info are pretty much used exclusively by make-money-fast scammers, phishers, scammers and other assorted lowlife who like it because it costs a third of the price of a real domain name. I can think of only a small handful of .info domain names that are actually legit - http://rdfa.info/ comes to mind. .aero? What the fuck? Are Boeing and Delta Airlines really having difficulty with domain squatting? .tel and .jobs are complete bullshit. I mean, if you suddenly decide that you want to know the telephone number of your local Starbucks, are you more likely to (a) go to Google and type in "Starbucks Manhattan" or (b) type in manhattan.starbucks.tel. Same for jobs. If you decide you want to get a job working for BigCompany, you go to their website and you click on 'jobs' or 'careers' or whatever. Or you Google. You don't think "Oh, I better go to BigCompany.jobs."
We've also had .mobi, which is completely stupid. The current generation of mobile devices - iPhone, Android G1, Pre, Blackberry - are becoming increasingly capable of showing normal websites. And rather than registering .mobi, most sites seem to think m.whatever.com (for generic mobile: some are also doing i.whatever.com for iPhone-specific sites, and back in the day people had pda.whatever.com for PDA specific sites, wap.whatever.com for stuff written in WML and served as WAP content - I'm sure in Japan, there's probably i-mode specific subdomains or pathnames).
But now ICANN seem to want to make it so that anyone can have a TLD if they pay. There have already been people suggesting .nyc, .london, .paris and other city names (hint: .us, .uk, .fr). Big companies are thinking about putting in bids for their trademarks: I've seriously seen it suggested that someone like Michael Jordan register .jordan, then can have clothes.jordan, shoes.jordan, basketball.jordan and so on.
As for .eco: the only justification for it seems to be that the sale of .eco domains could be used for some useful social end - sell domains, plant trees, reverse global warming or whatever. Okay. Great. That's not nearly enough justification. Hosts that are going to want a .eco domain are either commercial entities (use .com), non-commercial entities (use .org), country-specific domains (use the country code TLD), government (use .gov or your local government national TLD - .gov.uk or whatever), or maybe academic (use .edu or .ac.uk or your country's national TLD).
ICANN are corporate whores and have proven they are completely untrustworthy. The domain name system needs to have a Revenge of the Nerds moment. We need to take it back and put it under the careful guidance of an IETF-like body who will decide TLD decisions on the basis of the needs of the Internet community, in an open and democratic process, rather than a process where you basically turn up with a wheelbarrow full of cash and a dumb idea and then get proclaimed owner of a new TLD. TLDs need to be distributed by IETF-like wise beardy Internet veterans rather than assholes who think the
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
A male birth control pill or implanted delivery system will help, and may even cause a population decline. Once that's accomplished, Jesus and Mary need to ban fertility clinics. "Reproductive freedom" has been left in the hands of women crazy with baby-lust for too long.
You're completely wrong. Our planet could sustain 8 billion people, 9-10 billion if we really tried. Come on. Rationing is never the solution. Necessity is the mother of invention. When we need more food, we'll invent more efficient processes of making it. The Earth will find its own equilibrium, we don't need to do it for it. That's terribly Arrogant and Elitist.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
The reason we deride them is because they are all about problems, not about solutions. It is easy to point out the problems in life. Why? Because everything has a cost. Anything you do, there's a cost to, there's a downside. As such, no matter what choice you make, you can always say "This is the problem with that choice." That isn't hard, nor is it productive.
What is needed is to weigh the costs, and by costs we me economic and non-economic, of various solutions and then attempt to choose which one gives the most benefits with the least costs. They ALL have costs, downsides, that isn't the issue. The issue is which is the best.
Well green groups are notoriously bad for simply not caring. They just hate on all solutions. They say you are doing X poorly. So you say ok, well here's a way we can address that. They then hate on the new solution. They are whiners, not problem solvers.
The only thing they ever seem to agree is a solution is to give lots and lots of money to green organizations. They don't have a clear goal as to what will be done with it that'll make an improvement, but they need lots of money. That seems more than a little self serving.
That's why many people give them crap. If they want more people to take them seriously they need to grow up. They can't just point out problems, they have to start coming up with solutions. Also those have to be real solutions, not "We should all go back to preindustrial society, never mind that 90%+ of humans have to die for that to happen." So long as they just hate on any real solution, people are going to keep ignoring them.
And wealth and education. Those are more pleasant ways to reduce birthrates.
Why is this ironic? It is logical. I personally have been married for four years and sometimes we would like to have children. However, we want them to get the best chances and the best environment we can give them. This requires money. So, we first build up what we can. Saving up for a house for example (housing where I live is still horribly expensive). While you can raise a child in a one bedroom apartment, it really isn't what you want to do.
So we wait.... Educated people in general are able to plan their future and also not overstress the resources at their disposal. Sure, with my income it is most likely possible to have ten children or so, if you all give them just enough to live on. Is that really what you want to do to your children?
Besides, one thing to consider. Having educated parents doesn't guarantee that the children will be educated. You can give try to give them a healthy interest in science, maths, arts, literature and whatever you can come up with. It may or may not work. My parents found this out the hard way. Both my dad and mom have University degrees and their first born (my brother) was abysmal at school. He never got any degree (unless you count the painter -not art- apprenticeship he did). My parents had a real hard time accepting that their kid was never going to be as educated as them. I, the second in line was much better at school and I have the University degree to prove it (and the well paying job I now have). The last kid, my sister, managed a high school diploma. I think she could have done better, but she was more interested in partying and socializing. She did do a sound engineer study, but only got the certificate of attendance not the diploma.
We all turned out well, it's not that. My brother is a bus driver and does his job well and earns a decent living. My sister has a sound engineer job, but often has to work as a stage hand if there is a certified sound engineer available.
Of course, my family is not the rule. An uncle of mine has six kids (neither parent had a University degree, but both had done superior studies) and all of their kids have either superior studies or University degrees.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The infrastructure we have is insufficient to give everyone a reasonable quality of life. Obviously, our planet could sustain 9-10 billion if we really tried. But they'd all be living in conditions looking roughly like modern India - crowded, dirty, cities where no one has enough.
If we backtrack a bit, reduce the population by about half, the infrastructure we have in place would be sufficient to give everyone a decent (yes, by which I mean like the United States) quality of life. At that point, maybe we can talk about increasing the population.
You are arrogant and elitist to suggest that people should take up all the space they can, because they'll deal with it just fine. The fact that you have a computer suggests that you haven't had to deal with it.
And by 'it' I mean no paved roads, roads that wash out in the rainy season cutting you off from important supplies, lack of flush toilets or outright lack of running water. I don't want the steady state, I want true equilibrium, with people having, on the whole, enough to sustain themselves without working day and night.
We're somewhat past the point of having the resources to be able to enhance wealth and education for the entirety of the existing population, hence the original issue.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
So we wait.... Educated people in general are able to plan their future and also not overstress the resources at their disposal. Sure, with my income it is most likely possible to have ten children or so, if you all give them just enough to live on. Is that really what you want to do to your children?
I am pretty sure that parents with both university degrees will be able to take care for children. While they may not always be that well off (and sometimes have to resort to eating fish fingers in a microwave), I doubt that you will see extremely high levels of poverty. Today people are more interested in getting expensive vehicles and status symbols than caring for their children.
Having educated parents doesn't guarantee that the children will be educated. You can give try to give them a healthy interest in science, maths, arts, literature and whatever you can come up with. It may or may not work.
It has been shown that intelligence (whether measured through IQ or g-loaded tests) are highly hereditary. While not all children will always go to university, at least a high percentage of them will have the potential.
Unfortunately potential does not mean a degree. You have to do a lot of work to get a degree. A lot of privileged kids nowadays are not willing to do that. But that is a social issue â" not an intelligence one. With the story you tell, I get the impression that both your siblings had the potential to go to college/university â" but they lacked the ambition and drive to do so.
Of course, my family is not the rule. An uncle of mine has six kids (neither parent had a University degree, but both had done superior studies) and all of their kids have either superior studies or University degrees.
This happens a lot. My dad only had a 3 year diploma (but not a degree) and that is why their children are highly focussed on studying (to make up his shortcomings). Just because a person doesnâ(TM)t have a degree does not make them unintelligent. It is unfortunate that most middle class kids have the potential but not the drive.
I hope you don't have any children, to do your part.
Be relentless!
They are going to give 57% of the profits. 57% of the profit from selling property that they are saying ICANN should give them? They better give far, far more than that if they expect any sympathy.
Not to mention, this use is pretty idiotic. The TLD name should have some relation to what sites using it are actually for.
And much the same the other way, eh?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
We can do this now.
Drop mail from anything @aol.com. It's a shotgun method for fixing the problem. As such there is collateral damage... but you won't miss the "RE:RE:RE:RE:urban myth" email from Aunt Sally, anyways.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
What absolute garbage, western population is controlling itself.
In fact most western countries are opening up their borders to deal with it.
The answer to population growth is wealth not tyranny. Wealthy people in a wealthy society don't feel the need to have four or five children on the basis that one or two of them will likely die before they grow up. Because in wealthy societies children have very high chances of surviving infancy.
The only thing I hear when I hear westerners espousing forced birth control in western countries is "I am an authoritarian and you will bow down to the state"
I hope you can develop a taste for soylent green. :)
He who has no
A total war is the best solution to the population explosion.
We have too many people on this planet as it is, and there's no good way to get them off the planet, the energy requirements are simply too great ...
Oh come on moderators! There isn't even a link in support of this wild claim (not even a lame one to a wikipedia article).
+1 insightful != +1 agree
At least attempt to unsure make claims based on some facts.
Yeah everybody, I know, this is slashdot. What a shame.
Given that there is an ultimate limit to the population the Earth can support, all population growth in unsustainable.
It's also worth pointing out that education is not hereditary, so it doesn't matter who breeds in that respect. Intelligence may be hereditary, but that's not concentrated in any particular group.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Our planet could sustain 8 billion people, 9-10 billion if we really tried
I agree, probably more.
Rationing is never the solution
What about when we're at 20 billion? There's a ceiling somewhere. Then it's rationing, or war. Probably war.
When we need more food, we'll invent more efficient processes of making it.
There's a limit to efficiency.
The Earth will find its own equilibrium, we don't need to do it for it.
We might not like the way the Earth finds equilibrium. Remember, there are far more extinct species than living species. I'm not so much concerned about the Earth, as I am about us.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Ever heard of the term "baby boomer" and wondered what conditions led to the "baby boom"? A war will not do what you think in the long term.
Agreed, unfortunately they are predicting a population of 9 billion in 2050, and 10 billion by 2150. So issues are coming that will likely require population control, and some version of rationing. Anyone thinking we can sustain 10 billion cars is crazy, regardless we develop some super battery. Hopes of the next generation (more than the top 5% anyway) having it better than the current generation are very unlikely if the next generation is 10+ billion people, and want to enjoy energy consuming hobbies.
Whois reports that steve.jobs is in fact held by Employ Media LLC, though they don't seem to have done anything with it.
However, I am happy to report that kitty.cat does resolve. ^_^
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.futron.com%2Fpdf%2Fresource_center%2Fwhite_papers%2FFutronLaunchCostWP.pdf&ei=x41_SrKENIiOMfr1wfQC&usg=AFQjCNGWxyLcQ6kz0fkpoeZYV1Rvxy3LVw&sig2=VbrRLcMg4Jx_lykdc2xgqA
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=301
Both of these place the average cost per pound of getting something into orbit at about $4,000 USD. Now, if we discount that getting people anywhere they could live without Earth-based support would be far more, and go with the best-case number of $2000 USD /pound, and assume that the average person weighs 130 lbs (we'll only send skinny people) ... that's $260,000 USD per person.
Given that the total yearly GDP of the Earth is 46 Trillion, if we expended 100% of our resources to getting people off the planet, we could send 10^12 / 26*10^4 is a little under 40 million people offworld per year. Thus, it would take 50 years to reduce the global population by one half in a very generous fairytale scenario where everyone works in concert to move people offworld and GDP remains constant despite losing people to colonies (possibly by keeping population constant, thus negating the benefit.)
The numbers are so literally astronomical that I didn't feel a citation was necessary, but there you go, even in fairytale world, it's a very difficult undertaking. In the real world, it's not a reasonable suggestion.
Maybe I should have clipped the quote to just
We have too many people on this planet as it is
Find me evidence to support that claim.
I think anyone with a brain knows an offworld solution is ridiculous.
It's also worth pointing out that education is not hereditary
In practice, it actually is - a child of parents who both have a degree is much more likely to get a degree himself than a child of parents who don't have any. There are a bunch of rather obvious reasons for that, ranging from degree being a required status or maturity symbols in those kinds of families, to higher income which allows for better education.
The Earth will find its own equilibrium, we don't need to do it for it.
As any other system that is basically chaotic, the Earth will "find" equilibrium by swinging past it first, at which point a negative feedback loop kicks in to reverse the direction. In this particular case it means that population numbers will grow past the equilibrium point, and then some mechanism to get back to it will kick in - famine, pandemic, war - pick one. Or, if you don't want to face such limited choices, be smart and start slowing down the growth so that it stops before the equilibrium point is passed.
That said, as was already rightly pointed out in this thread, overpopulation is not an issue in the First World anymore, so there isn't much we can do about it. Well, maybe short of rationing humanitarian aid to other countries (and especially Africa) so that only families with sufficiently few children would be eligible - but this is technically unfeasible to implement, and even if it was, the PC police will rip apart anyone who so much as hints at the idea as racist, eugenicist, and otherwise really bad person (just watch the replies to this post!).
OK, what does professional wrestling have to do with green groups?
There's this incredible new product soon to be released, and it's called Soylent Green....
What is understood, need not be discussed.
Al Gore invented the internet so he should get to say who gets dibs on the .eco domain. ;)
ImagePut - Free, Simple, Fast Image Hosting
that anti-globablist eco groups are trying to run a TLD on the internet?
I find it interesting how few of those people who say the world is overpopulated have offered to eliminate themselves and help solve the problem.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
We must stop this! Now!
My uncle Umberto would be very displeased!
He insists that this TLD be reserved for him!
If Tony King can do it, so can he!
He will protest to Wikipedia!
So you're saying that education is hereditary?
Doctor Dawkins! I've spotted another Lamarckian heretic! Shall I fetch the tar and feathers?
No need for population control: prosperous populations have fewer children. Without immigration even US population would go down. Teach people they can have fun and they won't have time for toddlers.
If you had any idea how many of the items you use are made of recycled materials "extracted" from garbage, you would be most probably eating with your hands out of a pot you made yourself from bog iron ... supposing you belong to a culture that cares about clean/unclean stuff.
Another example: a lot more land was cultivated a hundred years ago than it is now, and there were fewer forests.
In an ideal world where all resources are extracted from pristine sources, all waste is dumped and there are no economies of scale you would be right. Fortunately for us metals were recycled for thousands of years, we recycle a larger percentage of our waste than our ancestors did, and the economies of scale are amplified by technological advance.
Intelligence may be hereditary, but that's not concentrated in any particular group.
Intelligence is more concentrated in the university educated group. This is unfortunately a simple fact of nature.
There are other effects besides intelligence that are also hereditary. A good example is the affinity to become alcoholic (http://www.disability-resource.com/medical-health/alcoholism/alcoholism-is-it-hereditary-.php). Another example is violent crime â" children born to violent criminals are also likely to be more violent themselves.
Nowhere did I state that education was hereditary. But there is a lot of evidence that intelligence is hereditary. Do yourself a favour and at least read the WP article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
"You're completely wrong. Our planet could sustain 8 billion people, 9-10 billion if we really tried...[snip]...The Earth will find its own equilibrium, we don't need to do it for it. That's terribly Arrogant and Elitist."
That's some mighty twisted logic there. First you define an arbritrary equilibrim point and insist it's more correct than the GP's arbritrary equilibrim point, then you attack all such arbritrary equlibrium points as "Arrogant and Elitist".
Rationing is never the solution.
It's always the solution when a fixed quantity of resources R must supply X number of people for Y length of time but the average DESIRED consumption is greater than R/X per Y, in such a situation where the resource is essential to life the only alternative to rationing is violence. Violence is more or less mandatory if the REQUIRED individual consumption is greater that R/X per Y.
As evidence of the social effectiveness of rationing, try watering your garden with a mains water hose/sprinkler in Melbourne Australia, most people (including me) would dob you in before the water even hit the ground. This is in a culture were the label "dobber" is a serious insult.
Note: The first link blames the government, this is way too simple minded. Nobody saw the permenent drought coming so fast, even the climate change people thought it was 50yrs away (studies of why they failed to see it coming, show that runoff drops at 3X the rate of rainfall, so a 10% drop in rainfall equates to 30% less runoff to the dam). When it was obvious the drought was more than a normal cyclical drought the govenment fast tracked a $3.5b desal plant that will be one of the largest in the world (Melbourne is the largest project but most Aussie cities are building similar desal plants), none of which will resurect Australia's terminally ill breadbasket. If there is an obvious flaw in the government's plans/actions it's the fact they decided to power the desal plant with 100% coal even though it sits on the edge of the "roaring fourties".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"only families with sufficiently few children would be eligible"
People in the "first world" have pensions, everyone else has children, except China, who are just starting to realise they have neither.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I am a "baby boomer" when I was a kid there were still plenty of people with a dozen kids due to religious reasons but then in the 60's someone invented the pill and triggered the sexual revolution, just around the time I hit puberty. :)
I don't think you can really compare post-WW2 attitudes to a hypothetical post WW3 because I'm pretty sure the survivors of WW3 will not forget the recipe for the pill.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Might take a bit longer but we could keep the costs down by getting everyone to stand on the new Krakatoa and wait for the bang.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I call myself a greenie and have done since the 70's but I am also literate enough in science to understand that "green groups" are political movements and like all political movements pander to psuedo-science and spiritualisim to attract voters who have not aquired the skill of critical thinking and/or the knowledge base required to make that skill useful. Having said that - science can only tell you the options, it can't tell you how to choose wisely.
"anti-gaia-hypothesis"
Gaia gets a bad wrap, it is the victim of said spititual pandering (plus some deliberate anti-enviro conflation), Gaia is basically an alternate term for what we now call the biosphere. The author of the theory is James Lovelock who has been called the farther of Earth Science. Spiritualists picked up on the greek god reference and gave Gaia a "soul" and the Giai name fell into disrepute. Earth science went on to divide everything into overlapping spheres, biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, etc. Each sphere represents a planet wide system. The biosphere behaves LIKE an organisim in the same way an entire ants nest can be considered to behave LIKE an organisim. This does not imply either the ants nest or the biosphere IS an organisim/god.
BTW: Lovelock was also founding member of GreenPeace but like the other scientifically literate founders he resigned long ago. He also made headlines a few years ago for a wonderfull rant contradicting greenpeace's no-nuke policy.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Well, nice troll, but can you work the illuminati into it next time, how can I be expected to believe a conspiracy theory if there's no illuminati?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Ignoring the rights or wrongs of this for sake of this argument, the problem with population control is that it would be least effective where it's most needed.
The first part is subjective. I consider easy access to purified tap water necessary to maintain anything resembling a reasonable standard of living. Wikipedia puts the number of people with piped water at a little over half.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply
This WHO report puts the total with good sanitation at 60% (They have a very technical and probably better metric than piped water.)
All I'm saying is that we only have reasonable infrastructure to serve around 60% of the people on the planet. That's too many people in my book. The flipside of course is not enough infrastructure, but given the population expansion, we're fighting a losing battle. Thus, at the very least maintaining current population is important. Personally, I'd like to see it shrink to enable even more expensive infrastructure improvements like electricity and internet access, which I don't think I need a citation to tell you are much lower than sanitation levels.
I am seeing this from a perspective from where getting a place of your own is pretty much impossible if you're single income. What I have noted is that many do get expensive cars, because it is way easier than get a house/apartment because those are out of price. If you have to pay of over 50% of you income to get a place of your own, it is better to rent and live large. Those people say: better live well, I can't do anything more anyway. It is in a way understandable, but because of the way the real estate is priced, their salaries are high enough to do extravagant thing, but housing is beyond extravagant.
My brother: not in a cold day in hell. He's a nice guy, but he couldn't have ever. He knows that, my parents know that and are broken because of that. (Not really, they got to learn to live with it but as a firstborn and with their herdedity/background they expected him to be capable). I could explain you, but this has no place in a public forum, I'm sorry.
My sister... Yes, probably she could have. Definitely not hard sciences, but economics or so would have been possible. Her temperament and music talent however pushed her in another direction. However, if you want to go sound engineer you need a sound base of physics and she didn't have that. Our schooling system is very unforgiving. You fail the higher levels and you drop down never to get up again. I know, I have been a teacher for a while and I remember one teacher conference where one of the kids was elegible to be promoted to the higher levels and pretty much the teachers agreed on "we have the right to have a bright student too"... Completely fucking up her future... (Not really, she had plenty of options, but not all the options) My sister preferred to party and only after graduating she started to realise what she did. Even today, she says to me "if only I had applied myself more". That boat has sailed by now.
Unfortunately, yes... This is the case of my sister, but not the case of my brother. With my sister she had the drive once she could study what she wanted, but the skills lacked. It is much harder to fix up your holes in education later, than to have your education right from the beginning.
On the other hand, she has a much better social life than I do. That counts for something too, doesn't it?
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Well if you feel there are too many people, do the greater good, and mother earth a service and check out early.
No?
Guess its not /that/ over populated. Is it?
20th century Marxism is not progress...