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from the very-cool-when-he's-hot-under-the-collar dept.
The Center for American Progress reports:
Obama is famously low key. That's why on the hit Comedy Central show "Key & Peele", Keegan-Michael Key plays "Luther, President Obama's anger translator". The [annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner], however, is a rare place where the President can cut loose--as long as he uses humor.
In a hilarious admission that he has been too low key to convey the moral outrage justified by humanity's myopic march toward self-destruction--and by the brazen denial of climate science by many conservatives--Obama brought out "Luther" to express that outrage. And then, in an ingenious twist, Obama became so outraged that he didn't need Luther and in fact Luther himself couldn't take the genuinely angry Obama, who says of denial, "What kind of stupid, shortsighted, irresponsible, bull-"
Here's a video of the event.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @08:36AM
Yes you're right, but from the viewpoint of nature, everything works as it should. There is a situation on earth of overpopulation by humans. Overpopulation is always corrected by nature, there is no getting around that fact. If assuming humans are part of nature, then it is expected that humans will, statistically, act on its behalf. What is good for nature isn't neccesarily good for us and vice-versa. We would like to overpopulate even more and somehow magically not destroy the environment, nature just wants to see the population cut. Guess who's going to win?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:25AM
Hate to be rude to you AC, but that's a load of quasi-religious crap. Nature isn't an anthropomorphic sentient force with a plan and a will that cannot be denied. It's the culmination of many and various cause-and-effect physical processes. If we can understand those processes, we can manipulate them to our own ends and achieve things far beyond the realms of "nature". In fact, we've been doing exactly that for the last ten thousand years or more. It's called "technology".
I can guarantee that whatever rose-tinted agrarian utopia you'd like to return us to after nature's great purge - be it just before the industrial revolution, the classical greek/ roman era or whatever - the world was already overpopulated according to "nature's limits", due to us having invented technologies like farming, medicine and transport that allowed us to extend those limits. Unless you really want us to go back to snivelling in caves, scavenging rancid leftovers from hyenas.
Yes, there are physical limits to how many people the Earth can support, but just what those limits are depend on how cleverly and responsibly we manage the resources available to us. Right now we aren't being particularly responsible, as a species, but we're quickly getting better. The beneficial changes we've made to our attitude and behaviour in the last forty or fifty years are amazing. I'm confident that we are accelerating down the path towards a technological and social tipping point, probably within our lifetimes, where we actually manage to feed, house and clothe tens of billions of people in a comfortable, liberated and sustainable fashion. The only question is, can we get there before irrevocably fucking everything up?
Ultimately we could manage the Earth like we manage a forest or a park, maintaining the global environment in a steady state that is optimal not only us and our agriculture and industry, but for all (well, most) of the cuddly animals and seakittens too. All population models show that once we reach sufficient levels of comfort and freedom for everyone, population growth will level off (or even decline) on its own, with no cataclysmic Gaian intervention required. There are plenty of obstacles in our way (greed being the main one) but I think it's achievable. However we'll never get there by deliberately stunting our progress via wishy-washy luddite appeals to "nature".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gallondr00nk on Tuesday April 28 2015, @12:51PM
I think we've already solved most of the technological challenges to survival and providing a good standard of living to every being on the planet. That these problems remain seem to be mostly due to our economic system of outdated, pig headed industrial age thinking.
Population growth, as you say, tends to decline as affluence and education increases. One interesting trend is that that birth rates decline very sharply once infant mortality rates improve - suggesting that in the past, as grim as this sounds, a lot of huge families were more an insurance policy against mortality than a positive choice.
We're also finally changing our social codes so that a woman not having children isn't seen as having some kind of character flaw.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @01:01PM
I don't find people who don't want kids flawed, I just can't understand them. But I see no difference between men or women who don't want kids.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @01:15PM
...don't want kids... I just can't understand them.
I was one of three kids, both siblings have serious mental issues, with signs visible at an early age. When I started questioning family history (after my college years), I worked out that well over half of the aunts, uncles and grandparents on both sides also suffer(ed) from mental illness. When I saw what this heartbreak did to my parents (who continue to support non-functioning adult children), it played a big part in my decision to not have kids.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @01:21PM
Understandable. In this day and age there are other options for people with worrying genes for example adoption or sperm / egg / womb surrogacy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @08:48PM
There was a story in the news recently that demonstrates what a mess this still is.
One of the hosts of a morning network gabfest decided she wanted a kid though she couldn't conceive one of her own.
The Sherri Shepherd Case: One More Reason to Ban Commercial Surrogacy [dissidentvoice.org]
After the surrogate was well and truly pregnant, Shepherd decided she didn't want the kid.
The article also mentions the cases where a surrogate delivers an infant with a birth defect.
...and, frankly, there's enough already-been-born children to fill any need for a household full of still-growing bodies.
Comedian Paula Poundstone has such a household.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Insightful) by morgauxo on Tuesday April 28 2015, @01:47PM
I'd love to see people like this A/C adopt rather than go childless. No, it's not that I think everyone necessarily needs to have children. But.. this person has demonstrated a certain level of level headed rational thought in deciding not to pass on those genes. Isn't that a good thing to pass on to the next generation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @08:36AM
I'd love to see people like this A/C adopt rather than go childless. ...
[I'm the ac that chose to not have kids.]
If I'd found the right gf/wife when I was younger, adoption could have been an option, but it didn't happen. Instead I've had plenty of exposure to the kids of a few close friends where I'm sort of an honorary uncle, or something like that.
My experience roughly mirrors a childless couple that were both co-workers with my father. When I was little we often visited with this couple on holidays and other occasions. Unfortunately he died early, but she (widow) is now in her 90s and I visit her several times a week. The employees at the senior residence often mistake me for her son...I just reply that she's known me all my life and I've known her since I could remember (age 4-5?).
In addition to bad family genes, another early influence was a college prof (mid-1970s) who projected our current energy situation very clearly. He framed the question, would we (humans) have the sense use cheap non-renewable petroleum to switch to renewables (or fusion, which he called "star power")...before the petroleum became too scarce to make the switch? The prof wasn't optimistic then and I'm not now. Bringing a kid into an energy scarce world (and overcrowded too) seemed like a very selfish and mean thing to do.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:23PM
Well.. I was trying to be careful but inserting that "people like..." part of the comment. I would never presume to tell any specific person how they should plan and live their life! It's yours not mine and kids may very well not be the right thing for you.
I was just observing that you made a rather intelligent decision based on facts rather then emotion. That's one good decision more than many people out there with large families! If it's not all genetic but it can be passed down through teaching then...
As for bringing a kid into a doomed world.. well.. again, not trying to talk YOU specifically into anything... adopting doesn't bring anyone into the world who wasn't already in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @06:33PM
I was just observing that you made a rather intelligent decision based on facts rather then emotion.
Thanks for the compliment! It's worked out OK so far...
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:21PM
We're also finally changing our social codes so that a woman not having children isn't seen as having some kind of character flaw.
I agree. Sorta. I fail to see the problem with people taking themselves out of the gene pool. The future will belong to those who show up, and progressives are reproducing far below replacement rate. Where is the problem, other than we sane folk have to manage to survive your team's idiocy long enough for you to breed yourselves out of our way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:17PM
I agree. Sorta. I fail to see the problem with people taking themselves out of the gene pool. The future will belong to those who show up, and progressives are reproducing far below replacement rate. Where is the problem, other than we sane folk have to manage to survive your team's idiocy long enough for you to breed yourselves out of our way.
Ah, a right winger whose beliefs are based almost entirely on lies or fairy tales claiming to be one of the "sane" folks.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:23AM
we sane folk have to manage to survive your team's idiocy long enough for you to breed yourselves out of our way.
You know, this is the thing: where do you think all progressives, liberals, socialists, Social Justice Warriors, et cetera, come from? Yes, just like gays, they come from straight conservative parents!! Being a rightwing nut-job is not an inheritable condition! Well, unless you are a Cheney, or a Bush, or a Koch, but then I think it is more about the money than genes. Your fiendishly clever plan to survive either Global Warming or the attempts to reverse it (or, the Great Arklesiezure!) will fail!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:02PM
The majority of people who believe[1] as you do tend to not be especially affluent.
They have to spread what limited resources they have over what spawn they generate.
The Progressive couple who chose to have 1 kid can dedicate all of their resources to that 1 resource sink.
With a for-profit educational system in place, their 1 kid will likely become the well-educated overlord and the spawn of your group will be the less-educated serfs.
Your little revolution is a silly fantasy.
[1] Notice that I didn't say "think".
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:21AM
Hate to be rude to you AC, but that's a load of quasi-religious crap. Nature isn't an anthropomorphic sentient force with a plan and a will that cannot be denied. It's the culmination of many and various cause-and-effect physical processes. If we can understand those processes, we can manipulate them to our own ends and achieve things far beyond the realms of "nature". In fact, we've been doing exactly that for the last ten thousand years or more. It's called "technology".
We have proven to be capable of manipulating those processes far more than we can claim to understand them. Humanity's history is full of advances for humankind with disastrous consequences for many of the rest of its inhabitants. Several times those consequences have included local humans. We are still to this day driving other living organisms into extinction at an incredible rate, we are still altering ecosystems to what we think is our benefit (we have often found to great cost, that it was not), we are changing our climate with likely unforeseen results, and so on. Most of these things are happening not for the benefit of humanity, but for the benefit of a very small part of humanity, and that probably not for the long term. Tipping point? We will likely reach several. Whether they tip for the benefit of humanity and the planet (two things that are probably closely interwoven), or towards a series of disasters that will greatly affect our cultures, is something that remains to be seen. I'm not confident, we rarely see action on any issue until it reaches a crisis.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday April 28 2015, @07:01PM
Nature is a system, a system can be personified. Just like when I call a colony of cells... "you". That personifying doesn't make a hypothesis more or less valid, it's only a POV.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:33AM
No offence taken, I don't think you're being rude. I'm surprised you see any kind of (quasi) religious content in my post. I'm not a religious person. I think I was just stating the fact that 'Nature' includes Humans. You and other posters may find this hard to believe, or even think that humans are somehow 'above' nature. That's simply not true. By the way, with nature I mean the physical universe, not only earth.
You then fill in my thoughts about some rose tinted agrarian utopia you made up and that I'm supposed to be longing for, both of which I also never spoke. And you assume a 'great purge' of some kind. You further believe that I would want to 'go back' in time somewhere, which I also didn't say and by the way is also not true.
The world has indeed been overpopulated before, and the pospulation has also been cut before, for instance by epidemic disease. These are plain facts. You may find them scary, or not agree with them, then we arrive at the original point of science, and how some people don't seem to be able to get that.
I agree with the last two paragraphs of your post.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:32AM
Nature isn't a conscious being, and we are certainly not on behalf of nature. What is true is that overpopulation will get "corrected" one way or the other. That's already in the word "overpopulation": "over" as in "to much to be sustainable". Note that there are two ways this may be corrected: Either in the population shrinking (probably in a catastrophic way), or in a larger population getting sustainable. The latter goal can be achieved by reducing the average consumption of humans, so the same resources can support more people (and, of course, limiting further growth of the population which otherwise would outgrow also the increased sustainability).
Unfortunately there's no indication that humanity will choose the second way.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 28 2015, @02:27PM
Overpopulation is always corrected by nature, there is no getting around that fact.
As GreatAuntAnesthesia already noted, humanity has gotten around that "fact" for centuries. And now we're close to a stage where we can not only do global-scale terraforming (here, defined as transforming land or ocean into something more conducive to human use), but change the human body (and other organisms) in ways that aren't available to current nature and go places in space where nature as you know it has never existed. For example, how many people can Earth support, if we can survive solely off of direct sunlight and a small amount of replacement mass? How many people can we support if we're colonizing the entire Solar System? Overpopulation has a completely different meaning when you can engineering people to consume far less and create new places to live far from Earth.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nukkel on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:48PM
Why don't we start with colonizing the ocean floor, before heading off to space.
If you think humanity is ready for the latter, the former should be a piece of cake, right?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:13AM
Why don't we start with colonizing the ocean floor, before heading off to space.
Ocean floor doesn't get 1300 watts per square meter.