Real World Event Discussions

Canada panics over overpopulation

POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Monday, June 15, 2026 05:17
VIEWED: 5416
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RUE

Thursday, December 24, 2009 7:16 PM

"No, really, it's not. I've spent a lot of time in the third world, and it's not nearly as bad as America."

Add to that Mother Teresa felt that the poor in Calcutta were better off than the poor in the US.

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Silence is consent.

NIKI2

Thursday, December 24, 2009 8:56 PM

Gino, I, too, believe animals are not given neraly their due when it comes to smarts. I had a rehab raven for 14 years, and her intelligence was fascinating to observe, and ravens are famous for using tools. Octupi, marine mammals and others also portray higher intelligence than that for which they are given credit. But smarter than humans, as DT posits? I don't think so, and there is no scientific data that I know of which proves so.

DT, since you aren't willing to respond to my post replying to your attacks, I would respectfully request if you would refrain from responding to others as well. Would be nice anyway. Pretty much all I have to say to you is I appreciate your input, but not your insults”. As for

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It's not my job to educate you.

should I dig up ALL the posts in which you have lectured/educated many of us, because that's precisely what you do, yet you do it without any backup except your own beliefs. That's not debating, or discussing, that's lecturing. I will take what you say as opinion until/unless you can back it up

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I don't think anything I posted is in any serious doubt.

I realize that now. I don’t recall you often bothering to back things up or ever admit you might be wrong; I’ve got it now.

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What is beyond the bounds of reality to you is well recorded scientific fact to me.

Then please back it up with scientific fact so we can decide for ourselves, rather than expecting us to accept everything you say unquestioningly.

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I suspect your background here is academic, and I mean no slight to say that it is therefore academic. What you have been told, which is what academia is, a collection of what you've been told, in lectures and in books, is itself a form of religious creationism which pretends to be science.

No, my background is not academic, that’s an assumption. Nor is yours, from what I see, scientific; what you believe appears to be what you have experienced, and those beliefs are unshakeable by any reasonable standards.

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My supposition that intellectualism is a religion and not a science is based on experience. It clings to its dogma like nothing else. It lives in abject terror that it might have to let its accepted premises stand the test of actual trial and error.

I wholeheartedly disagree and feel your judgment on the matter is prejudiced and incorrect. And no, I never said or believed you are Christian, where you got that from, I have no idea. Rather the opposite; I think you see far too many things in terms of religion, and seem to have an extremely biased opinion on it, finding religion either the cause or a comparison to almost everything you dislike.

While I don’t believe Western Europe was mentioned, and Canada was, you say the assertion that

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to put America, Australia and Western Europe into one sentence as equals is beyond ignorance.

—that is not an insult in your eyes? I see. Well, Magon, we’re both beyond ignorant, obviously.

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Now we're a destitute nation of subsistence slavery. If you don't believe me, visit the US sometime.

I LIVE in the U.S., was born and raised here and lived here except for a few years in Afghanistan. It is nothing like as poverty ridden as virtually any place in Asia, where they literally mutilate their children to make them better beggars, and where starvation occurs daily.

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live in a small apt or trailer, and they own nothing. Debts outweigh assets, and they achieve economic freedom in poverty at the time of retirement. Statistically, two years later, they are dead. That's just raw statistics.

Cites, please! Such a statement encompassing many, much less MOST Americans is truly phenomenal.

Where YOU were born may well be all the things you described, but it is not that way in the majority of America. THAT is fact.

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The standard of living in the United States is one of the top 20 in the world by the standards economists use as measures of standards of living. Per capita income is high but al

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RUE

Thursday, December 24, 2009 9:46 PM

Hi Niki

I figured I'd look up some stats. BTW, figures are corrected for 'purchasing power'. (bold for the benefit of others who have argued about relative purchasing power in the past)

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

As of 2005, 80% of the world lives on less than 5.15 / day. Nearly 50% of the world lives on less than 3.14 / day.

If you imagine the equivalent: 80% of the US living on less 5.15 / day, 50% of the US living on less than 3.14 / day - the US is not there.

But if you look further down the page, you'll find that of rich nations, only Singapore has higher income inequality. And that the US has the lowest social mobility.

From other places we know that the US has the lowest lifespan of developed countries, and the highest infant mortality. And while the US claims to have a 99% literacy rate, a case can be made that 25% of the population is functionally illiterate.

If you read the book 'Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America' (Barbara Ehrenreich) you will get a feel for how desperate the lives are of many Americans, how unbelievably hard they work, how little they get, how many untreated health problems they endure, how close they are to homelessness.

In 2008 "32.2 million people — one in every 10 Americans — received food stamps at the latest count." "Approximately twenty percent of the homeless in America have full time or part-time jobs, yet cannot afford their own apartment or house. Forty percent of the homeless living at the New Orleans Mission homeless shelter have full times jobs, yet cannot afford outside housing."

So, while the US is not Somalia or even China, it is not up to the same standards as other developed countries. It is distinctly something less. And for all its supposed advantages, Mother Teresa found it worse than Calcutta.

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Silence is consent.

NIKI2

Friday, December 25, 2009 12:31 AM

You'll get no argument from me on any of those points, as things are now. It's the absurdity of saying we are worse than...well, all the things that were said...with which I disagree.

Also, my husband's ex got food stamps while she was going through nursing school. "Officially" she was raising two kids, but we had one of them. I'm DEFINITELY not saying people who get food stamps aren't poor, but there's a certain percentage that are not...she lived in Palo Alto and paid off their house afterward.

What was described as housing and state of living was beyond reality in my opinion, and it's only been a few years we've dipped as low as we have. I have NO argument that we're not what we were, or that we're slipping even further, or that America is any longer the "land of plenty", only that it's not as bad as it was portrayed. If it were, we wouldn't have the illegal alien population we have who are desperate not to get caught and sent home, would we?

DREAMTROVE

Friday, December 25, 2009 2:17 AM

Nik

not arguing. Just saying that the popular perception,, which yes, many people have, that the people in the US are atuo-better-off than people in a random other country like Costa Rica or Peru, is just not true.

Gino,

The basic thing that separates humans from animals is written language. it enables us to start with the collective knowledge of our predecessors.

This does not make us more intelligent, objectively, than other species. Humans are smarter than most speccies, but the I was shooting down the assertion that squirrels could have no concept of their own innate natural surroundings through the use of their own brains, which are not particularly dissimilar to our own.

The fact is that academic dogma supports the idea of a sort of 'divine brilliance' to humanity, and after years of studying the subject, I haven't found a lot of evidence to support this notion. That's why I call it a "religious" idea, because the concept is based on belief, not science, and that belief is based on an ideological position of human superiority.

If we went directly to communication, the most adaptive and rapid communicator in the world is the cuttlefish. The most efficient problem solver is the octopus, the fastest thinker is the mouse, the greatest total synaptic capacity is the blue whale, etc. etc. Humans will not win any particular individual contest.

Much would what we do is either simple social organization or ritual, both of which are pretty common animal behaviors. We tend to coat them, like we coat our instincts, mating rituals, etc., in so many layers of obfuscation that we *think* we are using our higher faculties.

But collectively, yes, we fair pretty well. We're not the smartest thing to ever come along, not even the smartest form of human. But we're reasonably smart.

When we actually use our brains.

FREMDFIRMA

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 2:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
If you read the book 'Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America' (Barbara Ehrenreich) you will get a feel for how desperate the lives are of many Americans, how unbelievably hard they work, how little they get, how many untreated health problems they endure, how close they are to homelessness.

Imma back up that reccommendation, it's a damned excellent work on the topic, as is this one.

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
http://www.amazon.com/Off-Books-Underground-Economy-Urban/dp/067403071
0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262055364&sr=1-1

-F

JAMERON4EVA

Wednesday, December 30, 2009 3:51 AM

Canada? CANADA? When did they get in the news. The last time was when they restricted the boarder laws, and started to keep people who didn't have the money to even get near passes, out.

"Mom, he has her chip. He has her."
John Connor,"Born To Run", TSCC EP 2x22

JAYNEZTOWN

Wednesday, July 12, 2023 8:14 PM

First the Natives went and the WASP elite Euro Empires and Whites came, some of Mexico arrived and now Canada today looks like a Colony of Pakistan, Arabia, Africa, India and Bangladesh.

A country slightly bigger than Texas is projected to match the US's population by 2050 — and it shows how radically the world is going to change over the next three decades
https://www.businessinsider.com/africa-population-surge-nigeria-us-wor
ker-shortage-world-population-day-2023-7

Drug cartel violence flares in western Mexico after vigilante leader's killing
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/drug-cartel-violence-flares-in-western-me
xico-after-vigilante-leader-s-killing-1.6464954

Why Trudeau got tough on immigration
https://news.yahoo.com/why-trudeau-got-tough-immigration-230045832.htm
l

JAYNEZTOWN

Friday, July 14, 2023 4:48 PM

Don't Freak its a Sikh

apologize?

Importing political problems from other parts of the world?

You see people on Go-Pro and doing selfie walking Toronto, Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver some places change, look like Bangladesh, Iran, India, Pakistan, Canada has the world's third-largest Sikh population, with nearly 800,000 people or 2.1% of the country's population not always offering the best sometimes they would blow up aircraft

How Hardeep Singh Nijjar's murder in Canada fuelled tensions with India

https://www.aol.com/news/hardeep-singh-nijjars-murder-canada-002134175
.html

Nijjar was shot dead by two unidentified gunmen in the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurudwara premises in Surrey, Canada

Supporters of assassinated B.C. Sikh temple leader worry for their own safety
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sikh-temple-nijjar-1.6
883372
A close associate of Sikh community leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar says his friend was warned by Canadian intelligence officials about being targeted for assassination

Sikh Extremists Thrive in Trudeau’s Canada
https://greekcitytimes.com/2023/06/16/sikh-extremists-thrive-in-trudea
us-canada/

Hardeep Singh Nijjar: Khalistani leader shot dead inside gurdwara in Canada
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/khalistan-leader-sho
t-dead-canada-b2360146.html
A fugitive Sikh separatist wanted by India’s government was shot dead by two unidentified men at a temple in Canada.

JAYNEZTOWN

Thursday, July 20, 2023 10:17 PM

Kamala Harris’s Revealing Malthusian Malapropism

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/07/kamala-harriss-revealing-malthu
sian-malapropism/

overpopulation,

Situation in which the number of individuals of a given species exceeds the number that its environment can sustain.

https://www.britannica.com/science/overpopulation

Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale migration, leading to an overabundant species and other animals in the ecosystem competing for food, space, and resources. The animals in an overpopulated area may then be forced to migrate to areas not typically inhabited, or die off without access to necessary resources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
Judgements regarding overpopulation always involve both facts and values. Animals often are judged overpopulated when their numbers cause impacts that people find dangerous, damaging, expensive, or otherwise harmful. Societies may be judged overpopulated when their human numbers cause impacts that degrade ecosystem services, decrease human health and well-being, or crowd other species out of existence.