Hiking off Mulholland in Studio City: Fryman Canyon Park
The Wreckoning Is Coming at You: Inside the Trainwreck Studio
Found in L.A.: Medical Marijuana Ditched in the Curb
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Simply Wrong Food: IHOP's Holiday Pancakes
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Alice Cooper, Ace Frehley @ Nokia Theater 10/28/09
We live in an extremely delicate era, beset by forms of danger so horrific and inescapable, even the best of us can barely function through the Fear. We're all aware by now that virtually everything we do in the world upsets the ecological balance we need ultimately to survive. Some of us do our best to mitigate that damage; some of us seem not to care nearly enough. And some of us move to shacks in the wilderness and start making declarations about the need to kill 9/10ths of the world's population. And enjoy respected members of the scientific community, in some insane channeling of the Third Reich / Khmer Rouge cult of death, standing to applaud them. Every person who cheered at the meeting in the article linked above should be drummed out of the scientific community and placed on a terrorist watch list. When we at LAist can agree with Redstate on anything, it would normally be a cause for celebration. This is not. Our world is sensitive to all kinds of shocks and disasters, our civilization is on the knife's edge between illumination and complete chaos. Many of us are doing our best to save the world, and this is NOT what we need right now.
Already, most of us seem to take for granted that the Earth as we know it will not go on much longer; that it's a miracle our species survived the last century, and there's no way in hell we're gonna make it through the next. Whatever you say about historical mass-catastrophes, they were geographically limited. There seems widespread agreement now that we're living in the most precarious epoch in the history of our species as a whole, and no, that's not just our egocentric view. So the last thing we need is to have the intellectual cream of our society decide that helping guide and care for the rest of us is no longer their responsibility. And are we -- the stupid, KFC-eating public at large -- wholly responsible if the scientists turn their backs on us, and decide to release some monstrous disease that will liquify us all in our Hondas, right there on the 405? If so, why? It's one thing for scientists to be sanctimonious. They've earned the right to feel superior, we suppose. But when did they become so bloodthirsty?
Who knows. Civil society was imposed on human specialization to avert just this kind of eventuality, so we all must have done something dreadfully wrong. Maybe we made fun of these guys (and you know they're all guys) for having bad skin. Cheerleaders wouldn't sleep with them for their minds, and now the nerds are lusting for revenge -- with airborne Ebola virus. As the Christian right (another holier-than-thou group who couldn't get laid) and the Muslim extremists (ditto) move toward thinning one anothers' numbers by the sword, our science community seems unable even to wait for the bombs to fall.
We were more than depressed and disgusted to hear about these scientists' plans for the rest of us. We were outright terrified.
One thing came to mind when we heard that number -- that 9/10ths of the human population figure. We thought of the Georgia Guidestones, and our long-standing fixation with what dark plans their builders might have already put in motion.
But hey, let's get it out there before it's too late: If it's okay for 400-odd scientists to openly call for our deaths en masse, we think it's okay to call for theirs, too. Or at least motion that they be locked up so they can't do what in their skewed opinion is best for the world.
We lie in bed tonight with our baby. We listen to music. We cuddle. It all seems sad, like the remnants of a lost world that was filled with light and reason, brilliant poetry and the glow of understanding, learning, appreciation...all these things that are disappearing. We see them now only through the lens of survival; what these songs will sound like to our children, who, in our fantasy life where they actually have a chance to live, will be born into some post-apocalyptic boat culture without literature or basic hygiene. This is our plea. We're young. We're human beings -- we're not comparable to reptiles or bacteria. We're not ready for it all to end. Someone needs to stop these people, who understand nothing of beauty or humanity, these academic pseudo-nihilist cannibals who lack even a shred of love for their own kind; someone needs to set them straight, or if not then kill them bloodily and lustily because at least that's an honest, un-hypocritical way to kill somebody, face to face, not with some fucking virus, those cowardly bastards; someone needs to stop them before they destroy it all.
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You might be surprised that I would agree with him, considering my nom de plume.
But not for the reasons he subscribes to...
I've been saying the exact same thing for years now. This is nothing new.
Thanks for the rant and the links, especially the Georgia Guidestones link (I'm planning my road trip there right now!).
The original source of outrage is a piece by Forest Mims, who is both a creationist, an "amateur scientist", and the editor of the website upon which the article appeared. There's no transcript of the speech, and to quote someone on metafilter, "mims seems to be someone who can't tell the difference between a prediction and a prescription". Congrats, LAist, way to riff on terrible journalism with a tangential ramble! This "story" can die now, ok internet?
Oh, and here's a link:
There's another account of the talk online. It mentions nothing of a plan to intentionally infect people with airborne ebola and kill a majority of the people on Earth. Pianka does clearly state that the planet is overpopulated and that we cannot sustain our growth, and may have already exceeded what we can maintain at a desirable style of living. That's the kind of thing an audience of ecologists would readily agree to, and is a truth they would applaud as an honest and strongly stated opinion.
Here is another firsthand account of Pianka's speech. There are also a good many corroborating accounts of similar speeches as recollected by his students. Search google.
"[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity," Pianka said. "We're looking forward to a huge collapse." (quoted in a student newspaper).
I can't believe I'm having to defend my position on this, but here goes:
Basically there is a rising breed of young pseudo-nihilists, with no background in philosophy, who are learning with the help of bitter radicals like Pianka that scientific logic leaves no room for human kindness - who are learning the supposed equivalency between humans and every other creature, which is a twisted way of saying that there's no need to hold human life in any high regard - while never seeing what it means to actually save human lives. In other words, his students should have to work in an ER, too, before winding up in labs handling dangerous diseases.
If, as Pianka sees it, human beings are in no way better than the flora, then the one thing many of us hold that separates us, that makes human life especially valuable -- our ability to reason -- must count for nothing. If our ability to reason counts for nothing, then there is no right or wrong; there is no one state of "nature" that's "better" than any other state, because without reason there is no basis for judging what is "better" or "worse." The idea that one thing is better for the planet and one thing is worse is a HUMAN CONCEPT that was created because we have to live here. So to advocate the eradication of the human species is, obviously, wrongheaded to say the very least.
We at LAist, without giving a damn about Mims, or his agenda, stand by the seemingly obvious principle that it would be absolutely wrong not to do everything humanly possible to prevent a plague wiping out 9/10ths of the species...and that it IS absolutley wrong to advocate this as a solution to population problems.
Now. If anyone wants to disagree with the above statement, let them come out and say so, with a real name, preferably, and may I suggest they be the first to volunteer themselves for population reduction?
Nice straw man argument, Strike.
Those of us who believe the human garden needs weeding badly also believe that we are not exempt from the pruning process. Nor do we feel we are the one's to chose.
Whether you agree with wiping us out intentionally or not, we as a species have spent most of the last 2-300 years creating our own demise. Now, a scenario to wipe us out in order to save the species could be seen as preventative, but the Earth is going to have it's way no matter what. We can do it ourselves and hope that it isn't too late for the 1/10th that makes it, or we can wait for the inevitable: when the planet takes us out. The ice caps are melting, the faults along the New Madrid and Rim of Fire are going to go and drop half of North America into the ocean, the climate is shifting and we are far, far overdue for a reversal of the planet's magnetic field.
Oh, and we are less than 50 years from having more bodies on this planet than it can accomodate. We won't be able to make enough food to feed everyone. Is it better to kill people swiftly or let them starve? Or wait for something else to do it?
Again, talking about killing people as equivalent to weeding a garden is sociopathic and the very definition of evil.
Also, simply making the statement that "the human garden needs weeding," without giving any reason or proof does not constitute a valid argument.
The online world is full of dire predictions, many theoretical or unfounded, about what may happen as resources dwindle. Most of them are based on a neo-mercantilist view of the world in which resources are absolutely limited. This isn't how the world works: On the one hand, new resources are constantly being made available through technology, and on the other, conservation is working to catch up with overuse. And, for another thing, our current production base is such that for the first time in a million years of human evolution, it's become imaginable to start
sending people off this planet. Should we lose our population density now, that window will close.
Further, there is no reason to think that the human population will continue growing indefinitely. All populations level or drop off when their environment reaches carrying capacity. Pre-emptive euthenasia is clearly not only unnecessary -- whoever would make that choice is a monster.
According to the UN's 2002 medium range population projection, the world population will likely peak at 9.2 billion people in 2075, before leveling at around 8.3 billion over the next hundred years. Assuming that we are willing to give up some luxuries, like gas-guzzling cars, (an inefficient system which oil prices and the free market are already starting to adjust) there is no reason to think this population level has to mean catastrophe, either for us or for the environment as a whole.
Killing people simply is not the answer, and it's beyond disturbing that armchair proponents of mass holocaust may soon have the tools to carry out their misanthropic fantasies.
This would be a good time to point out that a transcript of the speech has not been released and, further, multiple first-hand accounts have stated that he never advocated killing people, he simply pointed out that the planet cannot support 6.5 billion lives and that, one way (Ebola) or another, lots of us are very likely to go sometime soon. All he said was that he's fine with it if it does happen. That doesn't translate to "kill everyone"; it just means that he doesn't haul around the same guilt and fear about death that everyone else does.
As for alternative methods, why should we spend money trying to send people away from this planet when we can't keep what we have together? If we keep doing what we are doing and just change the location, we are going to destroy everywhere else exactly like we are destroying the Earth, which solves nothing—least of all the overpopulation that is sure to follow us wherever else we go.
Further, using terms like "holocaust" is irresponsible, reactionary and hyperbolic. No one here, nor Pianka, ever suggested that there be an ethnic cleansing, or that certain groups of people be wiped out. No one is suggesting eugenics programs to rebuild society, because the problem is the entire population, not just certain segments of it. It's a question of sheer numbers. The very nature of disease is that it is unbiased and will kill whomever is too weak to take it.
Marleigh, the word "holocaust" is defined as any massive slaughter. It is not limited to racial killing. A holocaust is what would ensue if ebola broke loose on the planet. And the egalitarianism of it doesn't make it okay.
The elitist attitudes of these responses are astonishing. People get by in far more confined, less comfy places than crowded, smoggy LA. Your definition of "too many people" may vary from mine, but can't we agree that cheerleading for their deaths is sociopathic and inhumane, whether you yourself plan to kill them personally or not?
Careful, Josh--the table's wobbling, and someone may notice your knee is jerking.
Funny that you used the word elitist to describe those who dare assert that humanity is no more--and maybe less--important than any other species that inhabits our planet. Is it not truly elitist to suggest that our needs as a species outweigh that of other lifeforms simply because we like poetry? Arguments for our supposed superiority are philosophical, not scientific. As for the repeated use of the word 'sociopathy'--the exploitation and abuse of others for one's own gain or edification without the attendant feelings of remorse or responsibility--it fits nicely w/ most humanity's attitude toward the planet they live on, don't you think?
I'm not saying I agree w/ Mr. Planka, but I am suggesting that we take responsibility for our part in the circumstances we are creating for ourselves. Changing our destiny is going to require more, however, than half-assed attempts at conservation and limp legislation; frankly, I don't think most of us are up to it. Your assertion that by giving up automobiles and recycling every week will somehow meet the needs of 9 billion people by the end of the century is staggeringly naive and ill-informed. You can cling to the capitalist life raft of delusional, irrational thinking if you wish--maybe if you pretend hard enough, everything will be okay. I have a feeling that science will prove you wrong though, and probably within your lifetime. Maybe instead of hurling the obligatory Third Reich epithets at Mr. Planka, you should take one of his classes.
But no matter. You and I can pontificate about such things until we both walk away muttering under our breath, but in the end, it is pretty pointless. Whether Mr. Planka is right or not, the proving ground for our worth is going to be our will to survive, as it is w/ the rest of nature. We have irrepairably damaged in 150 years of industrialization what it took nature billions to create, that is true. But don't feel bad for poor Mother Nature; when she's done w/ us, we'll know it.
See you in the hills, Shortcake!
I can't debate this point by point anymore.
I don't understand the (apparently prevalent) attitude that the human race deserves to be destroyed. I don't agree with the right wing nuts that human life is sacred because it's God's gift to nature -- surely then, God must have it out for nature, I agree -- but why do you all hate yourselves so much?
Listen: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NATURE. Humans are the latest evolutionary step to be churned out by our planet. Have you ever considered that maybe the Earth is designed to ultimately turn itself into a shiny metal object? How would you know what's right or wrong?
You don't.
You only know that other people are just like you, and we're all in this together. And if you don't feel it your responsibility to help the others, then there is something deeply wrong with you.
Very epic, very grandiose, and very inspiring. However, still very unconvincing.
So you went from bandying about haughty moral judgments like 'good', 'evil', 'monsters' 'deeply wrong', and 'sociopaths' to condeming morality altogether ("How would you know what's right and wrong? You don't.") simply because you lack any further insight or justification for your hypersensitive ranting? That's great. I think what really happened here is that you walked into the initial and very touching post w/ the feeling that everyone was going to join your rallying cry for a kinder and gentler faculty at Texas Universities everywhere, and you fell on your face when you were challenged. Oh well.
I guess the lesson here is to save your superior moral outrage for causes that everyone can agree on--like who's wearing what to the Academy Awards and how great that new Yeah Yeah Yeah's album is. That's sure to get you farther.
I just don't see the argument as academic. I know it's trendy to be a self-hating human, and I guess movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" must have ingrained this idea in the population that "nature will kick the bad guy's ass" (much like the Christian Right's notion that Jesus will do the same)...but I'm of the opinion, whatever you think will or won't happen per our environment, the rapture or whatever, that pro-apocalyptic rhetoric is essentially equivalent to inciting people to riot or murder, in that it gains the speaker notoriety at the expense of the rest of humanity, by instilling a world-view that does not try to make things better, but rather tries to hasten our collapse. That is the point I'm trying to make. I don't know if nobody gets it, or nobody agrees; whether these arguments are symptomatic of people's hopelessness at the state of the world or just typical trolling; but leaving all moral judgements out of it, it is in our self-interest as creatures that want to survive to avoid falling into apathy and apocalyptic disgust at the state of the world, rather than trying to fix it, and that is precisely what Pianka's talk is representative of.
Don't try to play semantics; I have a dictionary too. You know damn well what people think of when you use the word "holocaust", especially in conjuction with your earlier reference to the Third Reich. You could've said "mass slaughter" but you didn't because it doesn't have the same rhetorical power as the blantantly loaded "holocaust".
And now talking about things that are negative is leading us down the primrose path to Hell? C'mon.
Apocalyptic rhetoric has been around for 2,000 years or more, and thus far no one has grabbed the suggestion by the horns and wiped out the planet. We've had drama for longer than that, and you could make the case that theater endorses patricide, matricide, infanticide, homosexuality, bestiality, rape, sodomy, pedophilia and just boring old murder, and yet you don't see hordes or theater-goers roaming the streets looking for innocents to slaughter.
Just because an idea exists in the world in the relative vicinty of a means to accomplish it, it doesn't mean it's going to happen. Talking about something also doesn't mean you're going to run out and do it, and facing up to the potential reality of a worldwide epidemic or ecological disaster isn't hastening our collapse. No one is going to survive if we aren't prepared for the fact that the worst possible scenario could happen, and soon. That isn't to say that it will happen within our lifetime, but sticking your head in the sand and whining about the shameful state of misanthropes all over the world is irresponsible behavior for a thoughtful human being to engage in.
The missing link here is that when you start talking in a reasonable way about potential disaster, people automatically assume you have a morbid fascination or an interest in advancing our probable demise, which isn't the case. No one is going to survive if we're all so busy bitching about the shortfalls of misanthropy that we don't look around and start taking stock. All people like myself are trying to say is that Pianka never said we should be wiped out, but that we very likely will be and we need to deal with it now, before the shit hits the fan.
That doesn't sound like the hyperemotional ranting of someone ready to press the button and kickstart Armageddon to me.
Pianka did not just say that we should be prepared. He said he's looking forward to a complete collapse, he hopes we're not prepared, and he values reptiles and bacteria as much as, or more than, human beings.
I have no problem evaluating the situation and working toward solutions; in fact, that's exactly what I think we need to be doing, rather than getting on board with radical A. Christianity; B. Islam; or C. Eco-terrorism and trying to, as they say, "immanentize the eschaton." Yes, apocalyptic ideas have been around forever. But never has their application been so readily available to so many wackjobs.
What I'm saying is, it's not global warming or the food or energy supply that scare me most -- it's what John/Mohammed/Pianka down the road might be making in his basement and planning to release on the world in the name of Jesus/Muhammed/Gaia. Quite the opposite of burying my head in the sand, I'm trying to point out the real danger of people who see themselves in historical/apocalyptic terms, and might be willing to do something to fulfill their fantasies.
The Pianka's of the world don't have biological weapons, and any reasonable person realizes that reptiles and bacteria have as much worth as we do. We have no great value to the world except to ourselves, and our inflated ideas about humanity are our primary problem.
Pianka isn't an eco-terrorist; he's an academic, just like the stodgy science professors you find at campuses all over the country. He trades in ideas, not actions. There are people out there much scarier and much more dedicated to wiping out humanity than he is, and some of their friends live in our backyard (remember all the ELF activity in the past few years?). He is just a professor who lives in the desert.
Pointing out the "real danger" of people who have scary ideas who "might" be willing to do something is paranoid and overblown. We all have the potential to snap and do something terrible, but that doesn't mean we all need to be policed for our own good.
"Don't try to play semantics; I have a dictionary too."
Pwnt.