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Sentimental Depopulation
Found via RigInt: an article entitled Oil and People: Reducing Population in step with Oil Depletion by William Stanton. His argument is that as oil runs out, we will have to reduce to population levels before the Industrial Revolution, in which oil allowed us to boost our population upwards.
The funnest part of the whole thing though is that he claims that people who will resist the “cold logic” of his active depopulation scenario are nothing but “sentimentalists.” He knows however that his viewpoint is not altogether popular:
If, in this article, I discuss ways in which a global population reduction of some 6 billion people is likely to take place during the 21st Century, precedent suggests that nearly everyone will ignore me. “He must be mad”, media reviewers concluded when they read my first probes into the subject two years ago and effectively blacklisted the book
But I would suggest that these types of views are actually gaining traction little by little lately, courtesy of a bump upward in visibility of primitivist philosophy. Not that I think any primitivists are yet actively promoting depopulation, but they certainly do seem all agree that its ecologically “necessary” if not specifically desirable. In any event, Stanton also raises the possibility of, essentially, merciful genocide as food begins to run out:
It may well be that, in the West, the same argument will affect the thinking of militarily powerful nations. “If billions must die, and we have the technology to ensure that they are others, not us, why should we hold back”? Instantaneous nuclear elimination of population centres might even be considered merciful, compared to starvation and massacres prolonged over decades.
He sees that as a “worst case” scenario though, unless “enlightened governments and their peoples” figure out something better. I would wager that as discussion of these topics heats up, we are bound to see more and more people crossing the line of what was previously moral indignation over ideas like this, and see an increase in active discussions of this kind. He then begins to analyze what he probably sees as harsh truths and which he believes that he is one of the few people man enough to engage in this kind of thinking:
Probably the greatest obstacle to the [more peaceful “natural” population reduction] scenario with the best chance of success (in my opinion) is the Western world’s unintelligent devotion to political correctness, human rights and the sanctity of human life. In the Darwinian world that preceded and will follow the fossil fuel era, these concepts were and will be meaningless. Survival in a Darwinian resource-poor world depends on the ruthless elimination of rivals, not the acquisition of moral kudos by cherishing them when they are weak.
See also eliminative materialism and positivism, which all have their roots in this same Enlightenment/Industrial Revolution period that Stanton suggests we need to move, in spirit, back beyond. It has, as far as I can tell, only ever been the “masses” who were fed the line about human rights and the sanctity of human life. The master caste, big brother, has never really adhered to any of these airy-fairy “sentimental” principles because they have greater freedoms which we do not have. But it is in their interest and the interest of social cohesion to foist these “sentimental” ideals on us.
He continues:
So the population reduction scenario with the best chance of success has to be Darwinian in all its aspects, with none of the sentimentality that shrouded the second half of the 20th Century in a dense fog of political correctness (Stanton 2003 page 193). It is best examined at the nation-state scale. The United Kingdom will serve as the model.
To those sentimentalists who cannot understand the need to reduce UK population from 60 million to about 2 million over 150 years, and who are outraged at the proposed replacement of human rights by cold logic, I would say “You have had your day, in which your woolly thinking has messed up not just the Western world but the whole planet, which could, if Homo sapiens had been truly intelligent, have supported a small population enjoying a wonderful quality of life almost for ever. You have thrown away that opportunity.”
The Darwinian approach, in this planned population reduction scenario, is to maximise the well-being of the UK as a nation-state. Individual citizens, and aliens, must expect to be seriously inconvenienced by the single-minded drive to reduce population ahead of resource shortage. The consolation is that the alternative, letting Nature take its course, would be so much worse.
So in other words, he is saying that it’s our fault - yours and mine - that our sappy sentimentalism, belief in human rights and “wooly thinking” has gotten things so screwed up. And it’s not actually the fault of those people who have been actively operating according to the type of technocratic “cold logic” he has been arguing for here all along. The point that he is obscuring - the part that he is lying about - is that our sentimentalism was EVER given a chance to run things, that it ever truly won the day. It almost did. Sort of. A couple of times, in a few isolated instances. But it did NOT catch on as a principle of governance. However, it did catch on as a system of morality to control the wage-slave population. But how that is our fault, I have no idea.
Further, Stanton talks about what will happen if a nation actively (without resorting to overt genocide against its own citizens) depopulates, that it will become the envy of its neighbors, who will then wipe themselves out:
Initially the greatest threats to UK security would come from rogue nations unwilling to curb traditionally high birth rates but lacking the means to feed the ever-growing numbers of new mouths. In the past, these were the poverty-stricken nations that repeatedly received humanitarian aid and famine relief, which did nothing to reduce the birth rate. In a Darwinian world, Nature would take its course. In consequence, their populations would reduce particularly fast and their threat would fade away.
After four or five decades the populations of the UK and other nations following the same scenario would probably be halved. In the rest of the world, where Nature was doing the reduction in an ambience of massacres and destruction, the proportionate fall would be greater and the pain would have been terrible. In the UK, in contrast, where orderly population shrinkage would have outpaced resource shrinkage, a relatively comfortable quality of life would have been enjoyed throughout the period. There would have been no loss of technological expertise, but it would no longer be employed in grandiose energy-wasteful projects. Instead, there would be intensive research into cost-effective methods of renewable energy recovery.
Enter the Technate stage right. If you haven’t been understanding my obsession with technocracy before this, pay attention now, because it is what he is describing in no uncertain terms. It is a system whereby a region isolate itself in a “comfortable quality of life” and waits patiently while the savages outside the gates starve themselves to death and brutally destroy one another. I’m sure I already have people reading this, thinking: “Well, what’s wrong with that?” What can I say? I guess you don’t share my sentimentality.
One closing note, he adds at the end:
Another problem is likely to be the residual opposition to population reduction from sentimentalists and/or religious extremists unable to understand that the days of plenty, when criminals and the weak could be cherished at public expense, are over. Acts of violent protest, such as are carried out today by animal rights activists and anti-abortionists, would, in the Darwinian world, attract capital punishment. Population reduction must be single-minded to succeed.
Remember that thing I said a couple days ago about opposition being built and manipulated into a usable position. These “violent acts of protest” would of course be useful rhetorical means to culturally link “sentimentalists” and “religious extremists” (which I now belated realize is a coy reference to people who believe humans have a soul) to an outmoded destructive attitude which is no longer usable now that our “days of plenty” are long past us.”
You either buy into their program or become tomorrow’s terrorist.
[Also see the “humorous” videos of Nina Paley on overpopulation over on the Aftermath blog and tell me that primitivism doesn’t dovetail neatly with what’s being described above!]
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September 14th, 2006 at 11:46 am
When did “criminals” (no specific type specified) and “the weak” become one and the same. What is weak? People who are crippled? Need glasses? This guy is a real piece of work. He should put his money where his mouth is - I am all for population reduction for him. He should stop talking and start forming a short line for the “pop-reducto” machine, then jump on in. What about an attempt at reduction of consumption before population decimation. 300 million americans consume a hell of lot more resources than 200 million Brazilians, for example. Does the logic extend to the point where those “mighty” countries have to reduce in proportion to what they use, or is it a considerable scenario only if it’s them not us?
September 14th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
check out this movie trailer. It’s like the Cliff Notes for that whole post above…
well, kind of:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/childrenofmen/large.html
pretty interesting I think. 1984 + some kind of depopulation scenario!
September 14th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
The sad thing is - the ‘unwashed masses’ (well, we’re washed now), ok, the ‘washed masses’ will eventually buy into this sort of thing - it’s the same damn story all over again, different flavour. I hate to say it but the herd is easy to fool.
Trust - me - they’ll even get the born agains to green light birth control and abortions for the ‘undesireables’.
It’s all so repetitively depressing … groan. This guy’s a real berk isn’t he?
And as to woolly thinking, he should look to his own brain. Perhaps if we’d tried the sentimentalist ideas - you know - like human rights, abortions and birth control for everyone - TRUE right to die - investigation of other means of energy (there’s plenty you know if we go about it the proper way) - REAL recycling - actual education - O I could bore you and go and on - perhaps we might not be in the fix we’re in.
This shite-wipe doesn’t seem to realise that it’s the ‘masters’ thinking that got us here.
Honestly …
D.
September 14th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Here’s a quote from a reviewer of Stanton’s book:
All the required reading for fellow-Malthusians. Interestingly, Nietzschean Lady reccommends Machiavelli as her first choice. The depopulation crowd’s ideological bedrock is indeed the Machiavellian/Weishauptian “the ends justifies the means”.
From Machiavelli to Weishaupt, and then to the Jacobins in French revolutionary France - the Jacobin Club took the philosophy to heart. After the revolutionaries gained control, one of the first order’s of business was to address the overpopulation of France. They wanted to reduce the population by one third: from 25 million to about 8 million. According to Nesta Webster, quoting the revolutionary Babeuf:
Same exact arguments by the elite Club of Romers today. Back in revolutionary France though, the means to cull the population was still relatively barbaric. Prudhomme, again according to Webster, estimated that 300, 000 people during the Reign of Terror were either drowned, guillotined or shot.
September 14th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
By “primitivist philosophy” are you refering to the desire to overthrow existing civilization and institute the Rousseauian ideal of the “noble savage”?
Rousseau was Adam Weishaupt’s main influence, and he taught his Illuminati disciples a version of this philosophy mixed with a tinge of revolutionary fervour. Weishaupt’s concept of virtue stems from his Rousseauian influences. Jean-Jacques Rousseau equated true virtue with the purity of mankind in its infancy before it was corrupted by civilization. This virtue was still apparent in the “savage” races that were being encountered by explorers in the forests and jungles of North and South America. By comparison, the despotism of western culture, with its class structures and inherent inequality, was considered inferior and contemptible. When Weishaupt says, “man must see sensible attractions in virtue”, he means that his disciples must appreciate the sensibility of destroying civil society, controlled by “the protectors of disorder”; instituting in its place a more virtuous ideal: the restoration of a primitive, utopian, egalitarian society based upon natural law.
Similar to Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality of Mankind, Weishaupt had prepared his own dialogue which was read upon initiation into the grade of Illuminatus Dirigens. It is a plagiarized version of Rousseau combined with Machiavelli. Weishaupt:
I imagine that the proponents of primitivism today use the same reasoning; that equality and liberty cannot persist in the unatural state of national boundaries and “patriotism.” Are they too proponents of a one world socialist government?
Weishaupt went on to tell his disciples that they, the Illuminati, were destined (and the only one’s competent enough) to lead mankind back to virtue - much in the same manner as the technocratic elite, proposed by Saint Simon and his pupil Auguste Comte.
September 14th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
What’s wrong with the technocracy idea? It goes beyond sentimentality: I don’t care how technologically advanced your tiny population is, it’s still tiny. That is to say, eventually the hordes of starving people outside will notice how well you’re doing and flood the lifeboat, taking you on down with them.
I fail to see how massive genocide is less painful than continued war due to starvation, etc. They both look equally horrific from where I’m standing, except for the added horror of the obviously Hilter-esque reasoning being used in the first case. It is of course “them” and not “us” who are the problem, and who will die. Ironically enough, Stanton himself would be one of the very first victims if his idea of “cold logic” were taken to rightful end. Let’s face it, it’s far more practical to kill the relatively small number of people in the first world who are causing by far the most strain on the earth.
Why don’t we work on lessening the massively disproportionate environmental impact of the first world (aided, in large measure, by our technology) and work on effective birth control? Condoms, not genocide!
September 14th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Nietzsche
Kind of an ironic statement considering Nietzsche died insane
William Stanton’s logic is insane, he has a poisoned ego- and must be marginalized. For if his thinking becomes accepted his insanity will spread to the nations.
I try not to hate anything (I have my dislikes) but I feel something close to hate when I see the word ‘eliminative materialism’ and its attempt to reduce being to something so mechanical and what not. And I have felt my entire being opposed to this type of pure positivism. I do not want to see humanity locked up in a perverse logical prison.
There are people out there that can change the world for the better, but they have compassion and have actually have a soul not decimated by logic. So, looking at Stanton’s cold logic- I raise my middle finger emphatically at it.
September 14th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Great post and comments, lots to chew over.
I have no problem with natural selection as such; I know why I’m alive and where my food comes from. But when people use the term ‘natural selection’ in relation to people it makes me very uneasy. Some random thoughts:
1) ‘Natural’ is just a thinly veiled moral justification for being the selective agent, so let’s be honest and just call it ‘Selection’. I would prefer it if they just came out and said, “I am the hand of death. You die now.” Of course they won’t do that because then we’d be justified in defending ourselves pre-emptively, hmm?
2) In the ‘cold logic’ of natural selection there is no ‘greater good’, so any moral justification for ‘management’ of the population is hollow and self-serving and can rightly be regarded as irrelevant. It’s about actions, not intentions.
3) Notice how these grand plans always deny the masses the possibility of being the selective agent? Piracy and guillotines, bad. State-administered nuclear genocide, good. If natural selection really is the guiding principle here then I strongly suggest we all have at it with no holds barred.
4) The greatest weapon us ‘hungry hordes’ possess is the strength of numbers. No wonder the PTB feel a little overwhelmed right now. We have their backs against the wall, and their shaking fingers hover above the nuclear button not for any reason other than blatant fear.
5) If they fear us then they’re not as powerful as they claim. Managing a large, intelligent, caring population must simply be beyond their feeble capabilities. They can only manage a small population of savages. That they would kill us all is a sure sign that we’ve outgrown them, and that they’ve given up.
Ha ha! We will accept the challenge. We will try where they have failed. We will suffer and bleed in order to live. If we must cull, we will start with the pessimists.
People of Earth, strike now while the iron is hot! Reclaim civilization in the name of love and optimism! Sentimentality forever!
September 14th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
it`ll all become mootish if the oil does cap out…………
it is becoming more difficult for the poor as energy costs increase.
September 15th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
SubstanceM:
That’s exactly what he wants, except not for him - for you!
John: Holy shit! Did you notice that movie comes out on Christmas day, a day associated with both birth and with saving the world?
September 15th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Terry, the breadth and depth of your research is really inspiring. It’s great to have you on here adding your voice to this conversation! So much to respond to, but this in particular jumps out:
I think this speaks more towards what they are all about, or at least one of the central conflicts in their philosophy.
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/09/15/anti-civilization-flame-war/
Look up green anarchy or anarcho-primitivism for more on them, I think.
They do not seem to be in favor of a world socialist government. They instead seem to favor the collapse of civilization altogether, upon what I believe is the misguided notion that civilization will simply vanish and none of the drives which caused it be a problem any longer. They seem unable or unwilling to recognize that there are many who are actively preparing/promoting for such a fall and are waiting in the wings to take over when it happens…
September 15th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Or, you could skip that step altogether and, as you almost suggest - destroy the first world! Not that I’m suggesting that, just that it seems like a logical conclusion to this line of thought…
September 15th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
I tend to agree with you that this thinking needs to “marginalized” and hence my recent crusade to that effect. Thinking about it though, how do viewpoints get marginalized by mainstream media? It is not by proving that they are logically contradictory or that they are damaging to the human soul. Instead it is by linking people to dirty laundry and discrediting philosophies by destroying people’s characters.
And maybe that’s what conspiracy theorists who are bent on uncovering proof of satanism and pedophilia are doing - taking a cue from mainstream media and how they marginalize people through character assault. Funny that its coming, of course, from the margins.
It is my belief that his thinking HAS been spread to all the nations, and it happened possibly as long as 250 years ago but in a different form. It has been the goal, since then, to slowly erode the institutions and belief systems which stand in the way since then. My ultimate fear of the Technocracy movement is that they seem to be advocating that the Malthusian/Machiavellian bastards finally come out of the closet and give us the “hard truth” - at the barrel of a gun of course.
We are of course, getting closer every day to that: see the sexualization and fetishization of terrorism and of repression:
http://community.livejournal.com/foto_decadent/1403878.html
September 15th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
I actually do. Or rather it is with the concept “survival of the fittest.” Because it ignores happenstance. I was thinking about this at work the other day as we cut back a bunch of ivy teeming with potato bugs and spiders.
That these bugs lost their home (and probably died) had nothing to do whatsoever with their fitness. Rather, it had to do with purely chance occurrences: the chain of events linking a person to purchase this property, to choose to hire my company, to choose to remove the ivy, to pay me to do so. Darwinism speaks nothing about any of those events
September 15th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
That’s my point exactly. They are banking on the idea that we will all become so sick and cynical that we will practically beg them to come out into the open and admit that.
September 15th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Whoa, holy shit! You’re right. I mean I knew this, but seeing it put into this context - of course they’re in favor of depopulation, because they know their armies and their weapons and their propaganda can’t reach all of us for ever. Hence, wipe us out and consolidate the survivors into concentrated centers to more easily administer and control
September 15th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
September 16th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Funny, I wanted to mention Rev. Malthus, and how he seems more influential than the later Comte’s “positivism”. Reverend Thomas Malthus wrote in opposition to the hopes for social progress that accompanied the birth of science. (Early editions of his essay explicitly connected suffering with the will of his God, in a way that resembles modern conservatism.) By a startling coincidence, the rules of science do not endorse the Malthusianism that Tim describes here. (You appear to agree with me on this point, Tim.)
Science tends to ignore verbal arguments that don’t involve observation or measurement (and regards even math with suspicion) because we’ve seen so many false arguments that look reasonable on paper. Take the argument that “Our current pattern of growth cannot be continued indefinitely.” What does that mean? It can’t just refer to population, since technology and gender equality tend to reduce population growth. (We can easily find modern conservatives moaning about shrinking populations. More on them in a second.) “Growth” appears to mean energy use. Certainly oil will run out at some point. But from where I stand, past evidence suggests we can find replacement sources of energy (and fertilizer) if we actually put some money into it. At this point the rules of science don’t seem to answer the question one way or the other. (Go ahead and form tribes if you want to, this may have value even if I’m right.)
Tim, in one comment you mention “survival of the fittest” and “Darwinism”. I think I’ve said before that the scientific theory of evolution doesn’t include a damned word about fitness, unless we take it to mean the chance of reproducing in some specific environment (one that includes humans cutting ivy, in the case you mention). Nor does it necessarily mean that humans must compete with each other for survival. Darwin compared his theory with Rev. Malthus’s in Origin of Species, but he also said that Malthusianism does not logically follow from Darwinism (nor does the unholy union of Rev Malthus and Machiavelli). You must know that when Stanton refers to his nationalistic plan as “the Darwinian approach”, he simply misuses the name to give his words an undeserved air of science and reason. Stop letting him get away with it. If you must abuse Darwin’s name, at least modify it and speak of Pop Darwinism.
The rules of science say “they” do not exist. (Remember what I said about leaders in the real world? Stanton and friends have no power, but even they seek moral or quasi-religious justification to calm their instinctive aversion to mass murder.) W and Cheney et al do not have any grand plan to survive a Collapse. I doubt they even bother to justify their assumptions the way Rev Malthus did. They seek power and wealth because they instinctively assume ‘we’ need to compete with other humans, with no scientific examination whatsoever. Although they have an argument of sorts for their views in other areas, this argument tries to obscure Machiavellian competition rather than justifying it. And it has little to say about international relations. When thinking of the world at large they just automatically assume one group will seize all the resources (as someone hinted in a later thread). And far from pushing depopulation, they argue for more white babies to help seize resources while forcing Americans into their baby-centric Right Way of Living. No part of their position seems derived from positivism, much less science. It owes a lot more to some fool’s interpretation of Genesis. And its claims of rationality seem like later additions motivated by the weakening of religious authority.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
This guy sounds just like that Texas professor Dr. Pianka who argues that human beings are no more valuable than bacteria. He too advocates massive global depopulation, but like ALL depopulation posers (including Ted Turner, the Club of Rome and the rest of their elitist ilk) he won’t kill himself to set an example.