Malthusian Snobs Pray for Birdflu to Cure Overpopulation
Blackmore quotes: "I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population"; "I take illegal drugs for inspiration"; "...without cannabis, most of my scientific research would never have been done."
A misanthropic dinner party elite wants to see the human race decimated by disease – just so long as it doesn’t affect them.
Brendan O’Neill - Nov 14, 2008
In the middle of all the hoo-hah over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s childish phone calls on a late-night radio show, you may have missed a far more scandalous utterance that was made on BBC radio.
On 5 November, the upmarket Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 aired a discussion about overpopulation between Dr Susan Blackmore (a neuroscientist) and Professor John Gray (of the London School of Economics).
Dr Blackmore said the “fundamental problem” facing the planet today is that “there are too many people”. Professor Gray agreed. Then Dr Blackmore declared: “For the planet’s sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we’re doomed.”
So, it’s official: at the Beeb it is unacceptable to make crude jokes about having sex with someone’s granddaughter, but it is perfectly OK to wish death upon large swathes of mankind.
Make a rude call to Andrew Sachs’ answerphone and you will be accused of dragging the BBC’s good name through the dirt. Spout misanthropic nonsense about the need for a speedily contagious disease to come and wipe out mankind and nobody will bat an eyelid.
At the Beeb it is perfectly OK to wish death upon large swathes of mankind
The disparity between the public reaction to Brandgate (wild) and the public reaction to what I think we should call ‘Birdflugate’ (non-existent) reveals a great deal about the warped morality of the cultural elite.
The reason why Dr Blackmore’s remark received no coverage or complaints is because the herbal tea-drinking literati that listens to Radio 3 discussion programmes will secretly share her prejudices about overpopulation.
Malthusianism, the one-eyed belief that all of the Earth’s problems are caused by over-breeding, is making a comeback in polite circles.
Following the discrediting of eugenics during the Second World War, Malthusians had been rather shamefaced about their beliefs. They continually invented new PC terms with which they might dress up their angst about “too many people”.
In Africa in particular, measures to tackle overpopulation were promoted in the deceitful language of “choice” and “autonomy”, by charities keen to avoid being accused of pursuing that far uglier-sounding goal: population control.
More recently, however, Malthusians have become more strident. The poisonous notion that the speedily breeding masses are pushing the planet to breaking point has become a casual dinner-party prejudice.
Earlier this year Prince Phillip gave a TV interview in which he offered a pat explanation for the food price crisis: “Too many people.” On the other side of the political spectrum, a republican columnist for the Independent fretted about the “swelling billions” (that’s people in the Third World ) who are pushing our planet to extinction.
Professor Gray has referred to humanity as a “plague”. The novelist Lionel Shriver recognises that this is a “racially, religiously and ethnically sticky” issue but says “the threat of overpopulation is back and here to stay”.
Dr Blackmore was taking these increasingly common prejudices to their logical conclusion when she wished that bird flu would come and kill some of us off (the “swelling billions”, preferably, rather than Radio 3 aficionados).
She follows in the tradition of Earth First!, the eco-group which in the early 1990s said that “just as the Plague contributed to the demise of feudalism, Aids has the potential to end industrialism”.
More recently, the Optimum Population Trust, which counts Prince Charles’s eco-adviser Jonathon Porritt among its directors, said that if we don’t find a way to reduce human numbers then “it will be one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse that bumps us off”.
Enough. If Ross and Brand’s outburst showed that comedians have trouble censoring their inner adolescents, then these middle-class fantasies about human annihilation suggest the cultural elite cannot keep its misanthropy in check.
The neo-Malthusians are as wrong as every population alarmist in history has ever been. Like Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and his followers, today’s bird flu dreamers make the schoolboy error of treating population growth as the only variant, and everything else – food production, progress, human ingenuity – as fixed entities.
They are motivated by severe pessimism about humanity’s ability to come up with solutions to its problems, and by the base idea that disease is the only thing that can sort us out.
Tags: Eugenics, John Gray, Malthusians, Population Control, Susan Blackmore
PERFECTIBILISTS: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati
The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship
Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism
Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith
America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones
November 18th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I wis too Protest as a licence payer to these kind of people being given the time of day, and also the lanuage of both over bloated Ross and the Retard Russell Brand, the BBC is in the Hands of the ILLUMINATI and are spreading their Gospel every second of the day as can be seen by the News presenters who are bigger culprits
November 18th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Sorry, but she is rite. Even the nowadays population is not 6,5 billions, still we are too many and this planet’s resources are not endless as some stupid mite add. We dont respect our home/earth at all. Look around. What u feel? Optimism? Any positive change for the future? For the sheeple yes. But not even for them. We should have followed nature’s xample. What we didnt want to do as we should have, others do for us in a hard way, for instance creating viruses and spreading them, poisoning air, water, earth to reduce the population etc. Good for us.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:42 am
“Dr Blackmore said the “fundamental problem” facing the planet today is that “there are too many people”. Professor Gray agreed”
I wonder if Blackmore and Gray would volunteer any of their friends or family to be the first to go?
Or maybe they are hoping that some of the people who would die for the ‘greater good’ would be the people that THEY would be choosing?
Scary stuff.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:54 am
We ARE overpopulated, and we are fast running out of resources to sustain the existing population, so something drastic will either have to happen or, unpopularly, be made to happen. It’s no good burying our heads in the sand. It’s to do with quality of life, not quantity of lives.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Excuse me, but where is the proof that we are overpopulated, who says, and should I actually believe them seeing as most of the things I see and read are, if not downright lies, then gross exaggerations?
November 18th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Obviously, “Just me,” you are a hypocrite. You preach death and disease from the safety of a keyboard. Put up or shut up. I expect you to cull your family, friends, neighbors and town first. Let me know when you’re done. Then we can take you seriously.
That goes for all the insane Malthusians: you first. I want to see martyrs for the cause.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Spend some time perusing the results of “overpopulation myth” and “‘Steve Mosher’ population.” Go through the first, second and third page results at Google. Then follow the links in the actual articles themselves and spend some time reading what they have to say. Read, learn; then read and learn some more.
There’s more to the so-called “overpopulation crisis” than what the elite Malthusians would have you believe.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
The Fascists who feel free to express a desire for others to die should do us all a favour and top themselves.
The BBC have been fully on side with this type of propaganda since Greg Dyke was hurled onto his sword by the whitewash cannon of Hutton.
I can no longer listen to radio Newspeak in the morning.
November 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
1- They should be the 1st to rid the planedt of themselves - extra mouths et.al. And when they do commit suicide, they should wite a letter to lthe newspapers, send several copies to different newspapers making it quite clear why they did it.
2 - Since the U.N. has been shown to be useless and working against the common people - their meetings with foreign governments for peace- is useless - I DON’T BELIEVE THEIR POPULATION CLOCK!
a - because they do NOT take into account the myriad deaths from Civil Wars in the Sudan, the Congo, other countries in Central Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Lebanon, Aghanistan, Iraq, the female executions in Iran, Palestine, Kashmir, China with the political slaughters and the contaminated milk, the government slaughters of Indians in Central and South America - for gold and land (same old same old) Deaths in one manner or another, wordwide.
2- JUST W H O are the “Overpupulation” lords to decide who has a right to be here in this life? It is between the First Cause, or what ever you may call It, It is between Whoever Brought Forth Life, and the Human Being!
November 18th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Good points, eartha. The “overpopulation lords” are well-known, powerful and influential elites: the fear-mongers at the Club of Rome, whose membership includes royalty and top financiers and industrialists; people like Ted Turner who gave a cool billion to the UN with the stipulation that it be used solely for population control efforts; Prince Phillip; Bill Gates and his foundation; David Rockefeller and his family’s Foundation behemoth; “Environmentalists”; radical animal rights activists; and social Darwinists. The entire edifice of Eugenics is intimately connected with it. It is the same people, with the same goal.
November 18th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Considering that you can fit the entire current population of the world into the state of Texas, with the population density of Paris, I think this whole notion of overpopulation is simply a fear tactic to get people used to the idea of “population control”. The purpose of which is certainly not to improve the planet for the good of all people, or to improve the quality of life for all people. This should be patently obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.
I agree with some of the others here though, who suggest that it’s time for the overpopulation proponents to put up or shut up and off themselves in the name of saving the planet. Since they are so concerned and so convinced of their “theory”, it would be the obvious moral and decent thing to do.
November 18th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Maybe the world is overpopulated, maybe it isn’t. None of us really know, and those who tell us are not to be trusted under any circumstances.
Either way, are we going to murder the 2 or 3 billion people it would take to make a difference?
Anyway, the malthusians have nothing to worry about, the plan to de-populate the world by at least half already exists.
It’s called “Codex Alimentarius” (Google it)
November 18th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
“Codex Alimentarius,” fertility reducing chemicals in plastics, cancer-causing pesticides on our food, and fluoride in the water - all have received the green light. Besides the most obvious reason of profit, these things ultimately get the go-ahead because there’s a good Malthusian incentive to implement it. Recall, that in 1968 the Club of Rome-funded study stated:
After such a brazen admission, do you think it’s accident that that is exactly what has occurred since? Gee, I wonder if the elite have the “antidote” to fluoride, depleted uranium and BPA?
November 19th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Population control? Yes, these sort of discussions should not be taboo. We have to grapple with these questions.
But the potentially bigger problem for mankind lies in the psychopathy of a Dr Blackmore. In a sane world she would be best suited to a padded cell, or at the very least kept under close supervision. The solutions that she favours come from a place of evil. But of course these kind of people do not see themselves as evil at all. They identify with swoon over whatever bunkum flows from elite think tanks. This kind of person has completely lost their humanity, and their ability to think creatively, and in favour of humanity as a whole.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Well if pot smoking deranged Dr Blackmore who incidently looks like a complete prat is going to wish a bird flu like virus on us that will wipe a large chunk of humanity, I hope that Dr Blackmore will be the only one and others like her with the same sick mentality that will be infected.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I say get rid of all the politicians, aristocrats and Royal lines, that should free up some space for the rest of us people, who are not greeeeedy, acquisitive, excessive swine.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
This planet isn’t overpopulated in general. But it has too many snobs like Blackmore and Gray that make this world a nasty place. If they want to do this planet a service, I suggest they make a gesture by getting rid of themselves.
November 21st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
We’ve already exceeded global carrying capacity. We are now in “overshoot”. Global population is nearing 7 billion. Different theorists using different methods seem to end up agreeing that global carrying capacity is probably about 2 billion. (This assumes some level of social justice and a moderate, low by “western” standards, standard of living. More is possible if you accept a cattle car / Matrix-esque “life”.) In any case, we will get to that much-lower-than-7-billion number the hard way (wars, famine, disease, and their accompanying losses of environmental quality, freedom, and social justice) OR the less hard way (immediately and drastically reducing our population voluntarily). Yes, all of us, yes, everywhere.
There is no scenario anywhere in which population growth is a “good thing” long term. Those who focus on per-country replacement rates ignore global population increases. Yes a drop in population would cause problems, but none of those problems are as big as the problems, suffering, and environmental collapse that is certain to occur if we don’t.
It’s too late for any “us” vs “them” arguments or any belief that national boundaries will do much to help anyone in the long run. This is a global issue with local and nation-state consequences. For example, immigration is a consequence of overpopulation, not a cause of it. Likewise, global climate change is not impressed by national boundaries.
One of the key factors in this scenario is also our sense of time. This is a slow motion crash that requires immediate action, a bit like trying to steer a supertanker that’s on a crash course by putting in consistent input over a multi year time frame, and the one effective input is for all of us everywhere to stop making babies. The supertanker analogy is also apt because it was the “one time gift” of oil that allowed us to get this far out on a limb, and peak oil has already happened.
No technological / “alternative energy” options have the capacity or can be ramped up fast enough to avoid major global calamity. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t do them. Aggressively shifting to alternative energy is necessary, just not sufficient.
I disagree with the argument that there is some “right to reproduce” that must be accommodated in this scenario. If there is any “right to reproduce” it’s in the concept that one has the freedom to nurture a child or children and form some sort of family. Biological reproduction is not necessary to do that and there are many in need of this sort of nurturing.
Being a parent is much different from the romantic and oxytocin enhanced notion of “having a baby” (a phrase I always found to be a bit horrifying for its “possessing-an-object” language frame).
Parenting is a long term and non gender specific process - something someone does for 18+ years, not a one time biological act. I would also argue that at least one criterion to reproduce would be to not only have the necessary skills and resources to parent a child for 18 years or so, but that doing so would not cause suffering for others either now or in the future. Since we are beyond our global carrying capacity, no one can biologically reproduce and truly meet that criteria, since each added child now assures many more people suffer later.
For more comprehensive analysis of all this I suggest
Approaching the Limits http://www.paulchefurka.ca (maybe start with his “Elephant in the Room” essay).
Bruce Sundquist on environmental impact of overpopulation http://home.alltel.net/bsundquist1/
The Oil Drum Peak Oil Overview - June 2007 (www.theoildrum.com/node/2693)
…and of course the classic “Overshoot” by Catton
November 21st, 2008 at 7:29 pm
evasta said:
“I disagree with the argument that there is some ‘right to reproduce’ that must be accommodated”
and
“I would also argue that at least one criterion to reproduce would be …”
That’s the problem with you Malthusians; you don’t get it that I could care less what you think. Postulate from your lofty high-horse all you want, but NO ONE will dictate anything to me - most of all “reproduction rights.” I’d soon as well have the whole planet go to hell, than let the likes of you enforce a totalitarian policy.
You carrying-capacity-peak-oil freaks are the most dangerous sons of bitches in the world. Come around my neighborhood with your UN NGOs and see what you get.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Leucedendra explains the Georgia Guidestones (our version of Stonehenge) in which the earth must be reduced to a population of 500,000,000. That means 6,300,000,000 must be harvested as food for their protein and water. In her web site http://www.betweendeath.com, Leucedendra reveals what the criteria are for being worthy of inheriting the earth. She also details the following:
Neither Christ nor Mohammed were any more than politically ambitious men who lived and died and are the pathways to deceit and deception. Human beings do NOT need dead men to reach God.
Hell is no more real than either Satan or Santa Claus.
Hell is a device which organized religion concocted to insult God.
God is pure and perfect and would NEVER allow a universe where anyone with power to sustain evil to exist.
God is a wave of energy whose range is infinite.
God would NEVER create a world where every time we eat, some plant or animal has to die!
WE built the physical universe and created the evolutionary blueprint for it. We abandoned God and we became trapped by it.
The new living language in Precept Number Three of the Guidestones is telepathy. Human beings who are worthy enough to survive the cataclysm must learn how to think telepathically to one another, so that all secrecy, deceit and falsehoods shall disappear as the humans who inherit the earth take responsibility for one another.
I suggest you read Leucedendra, the visitor from Antares who arrived in Roswell, New Mexico on July 4th, 1947. Her husband built the Georgia Guidestones in Nuberg, Georgia as a shrine of truth for all humanity to see.
Go to http://www.betweendeath.com and discover the truth, and why only 500,000,000 worthy and eligible human beings will survive when the rest of the 6,300,000,000 must die and be harvested for their protein and their water.
Arvel Montmortis, Ph.D.
CFO
Guidestones Preservation Foundation
January 4th, 2011 at 8:12 am
birdflu, AIDS and many other diseases are the creation of illuminati and NWO…great site!