Doomsday !!! this ought to be popular..

i dont know, i might be the only one, but it seems to me that when a city gets over crowded the people first experience several things... fighting, disease, famine, then the few that have a will to live leave.... thats happened throughout history.
animals do the same thing. in times over over population there is disease, famine, and aggression. which tends to reduce the population all by itself.
some say that aids in africa was put there on purpose by their government.... some also say that some governments already have weapons to shift the earth..... hence the tsunami that hit a few years ago.
i also think the earth has its own way of dealing with over population. when things get too out of line or are changed too much.. storms do happen and wash things away. floods, fires... some might say thats what is happening now. it seems the majority of over population happens in big cities. millions of people doing nothing all day and getting paid for it. they live stacked on top of each other. many dont have friends to speak of, except their pets. who would miss them if they just kacked over one day in their lonely apartment?

in times of war in ancient history, one of the worst things to happen to a civilazation was a stand off with the enemies outside the gates. you're trapped inside with limited resources, already over crowded.... the enemy just has to wait for you to crack..... if disease doesnt weaken you, then hunger will. either way, your numbers will be decimated sooner or later.
i think most leaders would follow those rules of history and nature.
there would be no need to distract people.
and ... if you really wanted to knock off a great deal of the population.... just lie and say there is a huge asteroid going to hit in the next few years. pure fear will cause a mass suicide of many people.....

i think you are drunk! [sm=drinking47.gif][sm=rotfl.gif]

With your imagination you should go visit the site Second Life, a virtual reality world.  It takes a lot of local pc resources and you have to do a little training upfront but after that you can visit realities created by the members.  It free to walk around but to create your own world it is quite expensive for an individual.
 
My work develops virtual worlds or as Second Life calls it Islands.  Our projects includes Preparednes, pandemic flu, and other disasters.  We've develop islands for private companies for some of the most sensitive issues.  An example would be Whistle Blowers and Employee Assistance.  It is all quite cool.
 
 

drunk ..no...just had a debate with some people at work tonight..

Look at areas around the world where war is going on...In Africa,the news reports that 4 million people have died in warfare since the late 80's..Wouldn't it be better to not only let this war continue,but inspire them to keep fighting,when,if you look at thestatistics,the world population could double to 11 BILLION in just 20 to 30 years..4 million is just a drop in the bucket.

  If you consider  the resource depletion going on now,as opposed to 20 years from now,do you think this isn't going to be a problem?

 

 

ORIGINAL: DPU

With your imagination you should go visit the site Second Life, a virtual reality world.  It takes a lot of local pc resources and you have to do a little training upfront but after that you can visit realities created by the members.  It free to walk around but to create your own world it is quite expensive for an individual.

My work develops virtual worlds or as Second Life calls it Islands.  Our projects includes Preparednes, pandemic flu, and other disasters.  We've develop islands for private companies for some of the most sensitive issues.  An example would be Whistle Blowers and Employee Assistance.  It is all quite cool.

 I don't think it takes much imagination to see that the earth we live on could die out one day,moslty due to our influece..Or that seeing this coming,the powers that be would try their best to cull the herd and delay the inevitable.

 I am not saying it will happen in our lifetime,but for now,I am not hearing any resposible answers  as to how to slow and stop the proccess..Exept for maybe Bradleys idea of getting drunk and forgetting about it..[sm=drinking47.gif]

I think that nature will take care of such things.  I think that people often forget that the earth is a living entity that was here looonnngg before humans were and will be here long after we are gone.

First of all, Sally is right. We are sooo funny, the way we think we can or should "save the planet". The planet is fine--it will kick us off when it's had enough of our shenanigans! We should think in terms of saving ourselves!

Seriously, though. This reminds me of a recent prank done by an art-activism group called the Yes Men. Let me see if I can explain it concisely:

Basically, they set up websites that look exactly like, but parody, big corporations. Then groups find the Yes Men Mock Website for, say, ExxonMobil or the WTO, and they email the Yes Men asking them to send an "ExxonMobil representative" to come speak at their conference.

So the Yes Men say Yes to this invitation. And they make these outrageous powerpoint presentations and basically tell all these people crazy things that serve to make a point about how little control we have over the actions of large corporations.

So The Yes Men gave a talk recently in Canada before a group of oilmen, claiming that ExxonMobil was concerned about the certainty of global warming and what to do about it. The problem, as they saw it, was that huge numbers of people would be dying, even as fossil fuels would become less and less appropriate to use.

In order to stay in business, ExxonMobil (according to the Yes Men) needed to develop a new product, and what better way than to use the vast number of corpses that are already resulting from drought, subsequent famine, and flooding--and that are sure to increase in number.

Their powerpoint presentation explained that these human bodies were a vast, untapped fuel resource--much like using whale oil. They called the product Vivoleum, and passed out candles made of vivoleum, that they claimed was once an ExxonMobil janitor.

There is more information about this and other pranks here:http://theyesmen.org/agribusiness/vivoleum/event/

We need to develope space colonization. All the people have to do in order to accomplish that is realize that Einstein was wrong. He proved himself wrong with Quantum Mechanics. But that can be the hardest thing, relinquishing a beloved faith.

the planet is not fine if you want to look at people as parasites and the planet as a living entity. we put pesticides on our dogs to ward off fleas, ticks and mosquitoes. without that protective poison our dogs would soon be overcome with fleas which cause rashes which can introduce other parasites, and the mosquitoes would infest them with heart worms, and well.. you know the drill.
such may be the case with earth. fleas may not live on the dog, but the live because of it. they also deplete the dog of nutrients and if left unchecked the dog will die slowly and painfully.

i had a science teacher in high school that was reading a sci-fi book about aliens invading the planet to eradicate people because they viewed us as parasites.... doesnt seem too far from the truth if you look at how careless a lot of people are, leaving trash around, dumping their garbage in the woods, and allowing toxic chemicals to seep into the water systems.

If anyone is interested in this sort of thing (and even if you aren't, it is still a good read) Daniel Quinn has written several books (Ishmael, My Ishmael, The Story of B) about where "man went wrong." I found it incredibly interesting, and is one of the books that really changed the way I think about the world.

And I don't see why we would encourage war in Africa. Africa is not where the problem is. It's highly dense, more technically advanced countries where the greatest obstacles need to be overcome.

This is exactly the point though..The high technology and rich  countries will not try to inflict casualties on a massive scale on their own people,unless it was a dire emergency..So in the time being,go to the poorer countries,and let them kill themselves off.It would make more sense to let the 3rd world countries die off first,if you were in league with other leaders from other 1st world countries..


  This still does not take into account the birth rate in our ouw part of the world...The only way to keep people from breeding would be some sort of forced sterilization,which would again have to be introduced through our food,water,or by some other means,and it would have to be done on a wide scale,and secretly..

 All this unless of course mother nature comes to the rescue.Maybe a disease that renders people sterile,or man made disease..



 

There are many diseases that make people sterile ("Chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrhea along with HIV & AIDS are diseases that make you sterile." from: [linkDfVtcp7exgJ:www.penn-partners.org/wp/k12/wphs/qwest/sex.htm+diseases+that+make+people+sterile&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us]this>http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cacheDfVtcp7exgJ:www.penn-partners.org/wp/k12/wphs/qwest/sex.htm+diseases+that+make+people+sterile&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us]this page[/link]). These diseases are suppressed and effects minimized in industrial countries, and worse in other areas...Africa being one of them.

And you would have to counter the problem of density...would your make industrialized nations less dense by forcing, or encouraging folks to relocate to Africa?

However, I feel that allowing this "elimination" to continue in Africa would be a detriment to the survival of the world. Tribal people did just fine for many years, living without mucking up the world, until industrial folks came along, told them they were doing things all wrong, and introduced disease and political systems that encourage, among other things, greed.

I'm gonna sound like a big hippie, but I feel that tribal folks are the best at working *with* each other and *with* the world they live in. Eliminating them would eliminate "the secret."

Industrialized nations are the ones who *need* to do the eliminating of their own (which, as you point out, they won't). I believe that "eliminating" African land will only leave it open for industrialized nations to colonize and industrialize...just like they did before, only now the desired resources have changed.

Taking weapons away from the people would be imperative.

LOL! I'd love to see somebody try to do that in the US. This is one of those "who will bell the cat" solutions.


More seriously; this is the kind of conversation I have with my walking buddy up here in the boonies. It kind of went like: if I get a job in Harrisburg, PA I would be willing to give up the privacy of the boonies for a historical rowhouse within walking distance of the theater and the river. But then, if the economic poop hits the fan - which I find more likely than armageddon, BTW - cities would be the first to collapse as they are unsustainable systems. In that case, I think I'm gonna stay put in the boonies, buy more guns and commute.

Paula

Eliminating weapons, IMO, is a huge mistake. 
 
The realm of humanity is going to end pretty soon anyways.  It's not just about resources, it's about ideologies as well.  We cannot agree to live and let live.  We seem to worry more about what's going on in our neighbor's backyard than in our own.  It's a sticky wicket but it will be our downfall.
 
(When I say "we" I mean the collective human "we" not just the USA or UK or the EU.)