Let's say you had one hundred women and hundred men on a planet and asked them to go at it and procreate as much as possible. Assuming the planet provided food and medical supplies, all one hundred women could get pregnant once every year, if not slightly more often. If we asked the next generation to carry on the experiment with the same vigor, every daughter could get pregnant as soon as she began ovulating. A generation could be twelve years in duration, or perhaps even less.
If all but ten of the original one hundred men were sterilized, and we asked for the same results, those ten man could still impregnate all one hundred women. If we then sterilized 90% of the male population before it reached maturity, the remaining 10% could still continue the experiment and impregnate every girl.
But if all but 10% of women were sterilized in any given generation and none of the men were sterilized, every generation would see 90% less pregnancies.
Long story short: Women make babies.
That's important to remember, because the biggest, and perhaps the only, challenge facing humanity is overpopulation. Challenges emerging from peak oil, global warming, and war are compounded by human population to the degree that radical responses to these issues are practically nullified unless humans depopulate planet earth. Moreover, we can greatly mitigate most of the dangers these issues pose if we radically depopulate.
The best thing about depopulation is that humanity loses nothing. No culture, nation, or language is sacrificed. Humanity is not any safer or progressing any faster by having over six billion people instead of under three billion people living on the earth. In fact, the opposite is the case. We might have twice as good a chance of giving birth to a genius, but with overpopulation we don't have the resources to properly educate every child, so that potential is wasted. Not only that, it is a lot more efficient to have a billion fully educated humans, and no others whose existences are limited to surviving, than over a billion educated with 6 billion more that tax resources.
Sterilizing women is the key to depopulation, and that may mean it is the key to humanity's harmonious survival. Incentives to depopulate in the form of cash, education, jobs, tax relief, free tubal ligation, and easy adoption should be targeted at women. Casting women who sacrifice having their own children in a heroic light should be an essential of advertising world over. Sex education must provide free contraception and impress the importance of women waiting to have children and having only one child and no more than two if they are determined to have their own. Incentives can be scaled to decrease with one and two children, with tax social penalties for women that have three or more. Social services must reward depopulation and cease to support overpopulation.
Legitimate incentives will also increase women's social power, which will engender more balance and fairness in our societies.
This idea needs to get more popular and current, and fast. The more the necessity of depopulating the earth comes into focus, the sooner we can inject these ideas into the machineries of our political, economic, and even religious institutions. If we do not act in haste, it may even get to the point where we need to apply the kind of pressure that considers women who have children at an early age and/or three or more children to be selfish.
Without this concerted effort, as unpopular as it may be, we are left with a much grimmer and darker alternative. Either way, humans are going to depopulate this planet. We can do it consciously, peacefully, heroically, and proactively, or the planetary circumstances will do it for us instinctually, violently, frighteningly, and passively.
www.godwithoutreligion.com
Sankara Saranam is a writer, philosopher, lecturer, and tireless proponent of pranayama, a technique of intuitive mysticism. He traveled extensively in India and Israel researching and writing on spiritual issues. His first book, Yoga and Judaism (Astrologue, 1997), showed that the Hebrew Prophets were practitioners of various systems of asceticism and pranayama (sense-introversion). His most recent work, the multi-award winning God Without Religion, seeks to balance the world's divergent and divisive cultural views of God with a scientific method of personal introspection and pranayama.
An ascetic and mystic, Sankara Saranam founded The Pranayama Institute as an expression of his ideal to make pranayama techniques available worldwide at no cost to students.
S. Saranam graduated from Columbia University magna cum laude as a student of religion. He has a master's degree in Eastern texts and Sanskrit from St. John's College. He is also a poet, composer, singer, and classically trained guitarist. S. Saranam currently lives with his wife and son in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
This is unfair to women; it would be another abuse, another discrimination to add to the list. As usual, it would condone men's irresponsability and place the burden on women's shoulders.
The solution is women's empowerment: when women attend universities, have jobs, when they are financially independant and in control of their destiny, they use birth control and they have few children; the poorer and the more discriminated they are, the more children they have. In Western countries, the birth rate is around 2 children, even less, which is adequate to control the overpopulation problem.
by
francine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 378 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 4:23:53 AM
It is somewhat true that birth rates tend to drop in industrial societies. But please note what parts of the society do that. Bluntly, right now the human race is undergoing a major evolutionary change. Just for your information, evolution is almost entirely a negative phenomenon. It can occur against some characteristic very, very rapidly. One or two generations can virtually remove an allele from the gene pool.
The characteristics that have been radically selected against for the past two generations are exactly those that feminists prize - at least in Western society.
But not all societies do it that way. And those that do not are change the proportions of the ethnicities in the world very, very rapidly. Those that are growing the fastest are precisely the harsh patriarchal societies (Islam is one) that you abhor.
In other words, a few more generations, there won't be many women that think like you do. Those Western women who are reproducing will be the descendants of those that have the strongest urge to reproduce. But that proportion of society in the world will be much smaller than today.
by
John Toradze (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 47 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 11:50:03 AM
"The characteristics that have been radically selected against for the past two generations are exactly those that feminists prize - at least in Western society.
But not all societies do it that way. And those that do not are change the proportions of the ethnicities in the world very, very rapidly. Those that are growing the fastest are precisely the harsh patriarchal societies (Islam is one) that you abhor.
In other words, a few more generations, there won't be many women that think like you do."
Are you suggesting that political opinion is biologically determined?
by
Rady Ananda (133 articles, 300 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 1239 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 12:49:37 PM
Are you suggesting that political opinion is biologically determined?
Two things matter here. First, take a hard look at the women around you who have reproduced the most. Those alleles that code for hormonal levels, neurotransmitters, etcetera, are inherited. Realize that the more liberal a society, the more it gives women a choice, or even puts ideas in her head that obstruct her reproduction, the stronger the selection is against women who are what you would call, smarter, stronger, more sensible.
Likewise, the inverse is true. The less choice women have in reproduction, the more selection occurs against women who are less smart, less sensible, etcetera.
In other words, it is pretty easy to see if you think about it a bit that evolution favors airheads in a liberal, safe, wealthy society and cautious, shrewdness in a conservative society where women are in unsafe.
Additionally, cultures and ideas also evolve. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme Women who have the kinds of ideas that you do, do not transmit them to their daughters as well because they either have no children or only one or two.
by
John Toradze (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 47 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 1:04:07 PM
"Two things matter here. First, take a hard look at the women around you who have reproduced the most. Those alleles that code for hormonal levels, neurotransmitters, etcetera, are inherited."
Okay, one woman had four kids and is very liberal by most definitions. Another had two kids and is very conservative. Another conservative had one; another conservative had two; and a liberal had two.
"Realize that the more liberal a society, the more it gives women a choice, or even puts ideas in her head that obstruct her reproduction, the stronger the selection is against women who are what you would call, smarter, stronger, more sensible."
Your assumptions have confused me; which type of woman are you calling smarter, stronger, more sensible? The women I mention who had fewer children are conservative; and I commend the value of having 2 or fewer children in this overpopulated world.
Likewise, the inverse is true. The less choice women have in reproduction, the more selection occurs against women who are less smart, less sensible, etcetera.
We live in a radically conservative society, to wit: the highest incarceration rate in the world, a poor educational system, lack of care for social justice and social progress so that corporations, including banks and any war industry can continue to profit; we lack universal health care; we poison our environment; we wage illegal wars and nobody goes to jail, etc.
We also have a birth rate of a little over 1. So, in this conservative society, we reproduce at about the rate we die.
So, before we can look at eugenics, you and I should agree on semantics. I think you're using words that mean one thing to you and another to me.
by
Rady Ananda (133 articles, 300 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 1239 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 8:19:58 PM
YOur statement that WOMEN should be sterilized is sexist, unkind and takes the responsibility off men. It implies the thought: WOMEN are responsible for the over-population of the planet. WOMEN are responsible for getting pregnant.
HELLO? The man had nothing to do with it? Yeah right.
What an attitude, That's truly disgusting!
So women should be *subject to* such sterilizing missions? Would this become law, if you had it your way? How easy for men to squiggle out of their part in matters and how easy a way to project your own shadow onto women!
Let me also point out that some are trying to depopulate the planet. They put chemicals in our waters, pass laws allowing known carcinogens to be in our food while "quack" listing those against such heinous things. Others go to war for profiteering motives.
Is this how we should depopulate the planet?
I know this is not what you are saying but there's something about "Depopulation" that bothers me. It's like saying "I hate people". I know that's not what you are saying here, you are concerned about planetary survival and the good of mankind in so being concerned.
However the notion of "Depopulation" also has that other side to its coin. Something to think about too.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, YOU MAN!! GRRRRR!!! AAARGH woof!!
by
Kathryn Smith (105 articles, 2 quicklinks, 42 diaries, 480 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 8:12:21 AM
Thus proving that women are irrational baby-machines.
YOur statement that WOMEN should be sterilized is sexist, unkind and takes the responsibility off men. It implies the thought: WOMEN are responsible for the over-population of the planet. WOMEN are responsible for getting pregnant.
Last I checked, in modern society, with birth control, women are responsible for getting pregnant or not. But, I guess you subscribe to the idea that women are these stupid, fainting flowers who are utterly irresponsible for themselves?
HELLO? The man had nothing to do with it? Yeah right.
Last women's studies class I remember, there was a long discussion about how men are unnecessary because of medical technology, that sperm banks were a better option, and there was a long discussion about cloning to eliminate men entirely from the earth. Also, how two woman parents were so much better than a heterosexual relationship.
What an attitude, That's truly disgusting!
Oh, right. That's an intelligent argument. You don't like something, there for it is disgusting. So obviously everyone around should react to it like men react to baby diapers.
So women should be *subject to* such sterilizing missions? Would this become law, if you had it your way? How easy for men to squiggle out of their part in matters and how easy a way to project your own shadow onto women!
So tell me. How else are men going to take responsibility for women becoming pregnant? I'm all ears. I am also surprised to see that you consider pregnancy and childbirth to be the shadow side of men.
Let me also point out that some are trying to depopulate the planet. They put chemicals in our waters, pass laws allowing known carcinogens to be in our food while "quack" listing those against such heinous things. Others go to war for profiteering motives.
And notice, that none of those men who go to war or do such things is wanting for women to have children with. Women do have a wonderful way of washing their hands of the blood that got them their nice home. Or are you going to deed your house back to the Indian tribe that was genocidally cleansed off the land?
Is this how we should depopulate the planet?
Well, it sure isn't working very well. What you are talking about does not cut population significantly. Not one thing. Even sending the men out to slaughter each other as was done in WWII to the tune of 100 million total or so doesn't cut the population. As Sankaran said, the men come home, and it doesn't matter how many there are left, the number of women doesn't change, and the next generation is larger.
I know this is not what you are saying but there's something about "Depopulation" that bothers me. It's like saying "I hate people". I know that's not what you are saying here, you are concerned about planetary survival and the good of mankind in so being concerned.
Actually, he is saying that if we don't depopulate this way, we will depopulate in horrific ways. Starvation, disease, endemic warfare in every part of the globe.
However the notion of "Depopulation" also has that other side to its coin. Something to think about too.
The "I hate people" side? Essentially, what you are protesting is the notion that you, or another female, wouldn't be able to reproduce as you like.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, YOU MAN!! GRRRRR!!! AAARGH woof!!
How? By refusing to have sex with a woman? By only having sex with female gorillas, and having humorilla offspring?
by
John Toradze (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 47 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 12:20:32 PM
You men would love to hold women down for the sake of your own damned EGOS.
You'd love to think that you have nothing to do with anything but that women have everything to do with everything.
You'd love to keep saying that women are stupid, incompetent, belong barefoot and PREGNANT and in the kitchen and are good for nothing else. You'd love to hold back their careers just so YOU can "shine" and show yourselves for just who you are...
Egocentric, selfish, brutish bastards that many of you are!
Sorry if I offend many male readers here who may be just the opposite. I have been very grateful to those men who have taken the side of women when chauvanist, egocentric and brutish pigs like this man have posted. I thank those of you who *choose* to have a sensitive heart with empathy and concern for HUMAN BEINGS, not just for MEN and "The others" who should, after all, be wiped off the planet.
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Kathryn Smith (105 articles, 2 quicklinks, 42 diaries, 480 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 8:16:34 AM
I don't claim there is any good answer to overpopulation, but the advantage of this one is that it empowers women. Yes, empowers, not disempowers.
Men have historically disempowered women by chaining them to procreation and the limits it puts on women, not men. In fact, the prime disempowerment of women comes from their "god given" obligation to bear children. That is, to those chauvinists, the only reason there are women.
But sterilizing women only means those self-sacrificing women won't have their own children, or will have only one or two later in life. They can still adopt.
And by using the incentives to their social advantage, they will increase their social standing with education and resources they may not otherwise get from the males in charge.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that if the women were given the education and the incentives without the requirement to sterilize, the population growth will go down because women will become aware of the problem and will, of their own, have less children.
And this is a challenge women have to have power to address. Without power, they will remain the baby making machines the uneducated and empowered men want them to be.
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Sankara Saranam (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 27 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 9:49:18 AM
(and I also see where the others are coming from, overwrought as they are)....
But... I LIKE the idea of the incentives to have only one, or at most 2 children, and then get sterilized. The right incentives toward birth control really can impower Women with more choices if properly applied. To do the opposite is clearly counter-productive, especially in an age of shrinking resources.
Perhaps these incentives can be applied to men, too, if we're really serious about de-population, or, as I'd prefer to call it, voluntary birth-control.
Perhaps with such incentives, and an emerging operative ethos of "Less is more", like the Japanese voluntarily imposed upon themselves when they were in danger of over-running their small island, is just what we need to ward off the really horrific scenarios the Neocons, for instance, envision for us when they speak of eliminating the "Useless Eaters".
by
Bia Winter (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 458 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 5:04:15 PM
You've just stumbled on the real solution which is better than the solution you first proposed. Has anyone bothered to think what would happen if the industrialized nations devoted a portion of their resources to real foreign aid -- aid that would help poor countries grow economically instead of aid that is used to bribe corrupt ruling elites? That would produce the results you want, women in the newly affluent societies would voluntarily limit the number of children they bear for the sake of their own career, intellectual, and personal advancement.
Your original proposal involving coercion and suppression of freedom is something we need to avoid if we want the results to be a society worth living in. You may protest that we don't have time for industrialization and economic growth to bring all the women in the world to the point where they want to limit the number of children they have. But that is just where the proposal for real economic aid comes in; it will speed up the process.
Robert Halfhill
by
rhalfhill (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 319 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 1:47:47 AM
Why are men allowed to post here about how women never seek wisdom (as in a previous diary) and how women should be sterilized to save the planet?
I am disgusted by this.
Rob, you need to do something about this. Editors should respond to such pigs as this and say "this is not acceptable, please revise and edit then we will post it".
Call it censorship. I call it boundaries and respect. Those of you who think there are no boundaries in life are suffering an extreme delusion which only will create chaos and mayhem. Is that what you want?
Editor response: Your other comment
"Egocentric, selfish, brutish bastards that many of you are!"
contains inappropriate, ad hominem content. The article writer proposes some extreme ideas. It's raised lots of discussion. Be warned, your name calling is not acceptable. rob kall
by
Kathryn Smith (105 articles, 2 quicklinks, 42 diaries, 480 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 8:20:22 AM
Stop reacting, take a breath, and read what I wrote again
Incentives means choice. It does not barbaric tactics, tying women down, and cutting out their innards
I titled this article Do the Math for a simple reason: Very few people do the math. Very few see how central population is to everything we face, and of the few that do, very few see the central roll women play in it.
This situation was not created by women or men in particular, but if blame should be laid on one or the other, it would have to be on men because men had most of the power over the course of human history.
But I am not blaming men because it doesn't help matters. I am simply pointing out the mathematics of the situation. And unless you find math to be sexist, then it behooves you to stop, do the math yourself, and come to your own conclusions without demonizing people.
Mind you, I am not saying this because I personally care what you think of me or my article. Nothing you've said bothers or hurts or saddens me personally. I wouldn't even care if they took your advice and banished the article and me forever from Oped News.
I am saying this because the issue I am raising deserves more and better from you. Ignore the messenger. This isn't personal. Do the math and come up with your own solutions. But if you don't see a problem with population, and you don't see that women make babies, then your math is make-believe. Better solutions are surely out there, but they take the math into consideration. The math cannot be ignored simply because you can yell sexism loudly.
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Sankara Saranam (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 27 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 10:27:42 AM
If the two met inside the man, the man would bear the baby. Obviously, that is not so. But saying that women make the babies is totally inacurate. Women simply bear the babies.
And I would agree (to a point) that sterilization of women was a great idea in greater numbers if it were not so barbaric and destructive to women's health (often). I'm surprised I seem to be the only mentioning this (though I have not read all the comments yet).
I wanted a tubal ligation myself but chose other methods so as not to hurt myself any more than necessary. I chose to have no kids whatsoever and have never regretted my choice.
And those preaching religion as the answer here... Wow... I don't even have the words to respond to that! Yikes!
p.s. I did not take the original article to be misongynistic at all. Simply naive and misguided. I'm not surprised at the anger in response to it but I do think it's unwarranted.
by
P. Alexandria (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 4:05:11 PM
Women grow babies, women nurture babies. Babies need mothers. A man, and males of most species, can literally orgasm and leave the scene.
The math is clear: nature sees the women's energy input as far far greater. Male sperm are cheap. Eggs are far more rare and precious to nature. Vasectomy will not reduce population because a woman can always find a man or a sperm bank to impregate her while men cannot find women to impregnate them.
Simply put, your equation does not contain two equal values. It isn't 2 +2 = 4. It is more like 2000000 + 2 = 2000002.
That's the math, and yes, there are always men willing to give their 2 cents to any woman that wants it.
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Sankara Saranam (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 27 comments)
on Monday, December 1, 2008 at 2:13:32 PM
Women DO have power beyond anything most of us even realize!
Why do you think the Fundies and Male Power are so rabidly trying to control womens' reproductive choices?
Besides, if we control our own bodies,,,WITH incentives that give us a quality of Life, and WITHOUT artificial pressures from "society" (read, Male society)! -we can be a whole lot more CHOOSEY about who we have babies with, when we're ready and willing!
End result: Fewer, but better Humans, Happier Women, less war-like men.
(The last one is just a Hopeful Hunch!)
by
Bia Winter (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 458 comments)
on Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 5:23:14 PM
And I object to both your proposal for censor ship, Robs Kall's censorship of the latter part of your comment, and the censorship of a still earlier comment being hidden. Do you politically correct people realize the advantages we enjoy by not having to fear that our comments will be censored by some king, bishop, or some Nazi or Stalinist functionary? Your language of boundaries could just as easily be used by any of the afore mentioned despots to crush your comments.
Read John Stuart Mill"s ON LIBERTY if you don't understand the advantages we enjoy of living in a society where the is relative freedom of speech! And before you point out the various means by which censorship is accomplished in our own society, the solution is by removing those restriction on freedom of speech, not by inposing new ones!
Robert Halfhill
by
rhalfhill (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 319 comments)
on Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 2:10:17 AM
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