It was also against the "not our kind" who were doing the populating. The rich can well off had children. They didn't want the lower classes having many, if any. If you look at a lot of the progressive woman like Gloria Steinem, they don't have any either. Having children is probably the most unselfish act two humans can do.
This stuff is so pervasive that it even infects the legitimately privileged brains of people like that embattled NPR CEO, who tweeted that she didn’t have kids because she was living “paycheck to paycheck” until her 30s. NYU grad, daughter of a Goldman Sachs exec, worked in international banking post-undergrad. Paycheck. To. Paycheck.
Great essay, MFW. They hate us. They really hate us.
There was a touch of early dystopian pessimism to some of our most interesting movies of the 1960s. A lot of this was Cold War pessimism, like Dr. Strangelove or even Planet of the Apes. We blew ourselves to hell!
But there was this undercurrent that we could be salvaged, even managed against our will. I recommend the 1970 Colossus: The Forbin Project. It’s like Skynet that doesn’t want to kill us (but will if it has to).
Humanity just cannot manage itself. It’s based on the first of a trilogy of books by D.F. Jones. The movie is great and ripe for a reboot, but I don’t trust anybody to do it.
The other books get progressively weirder. Colossus sets up and enforces human reproduction studies. But hang in there. There’s a happy ending.
One thing I liked about the Colossus series is that the computer, while properly an AI, understood it existed for the betterment of mankind. It was just a little bossy about it.
Nobody has been able to touch this dynamic. I think the Matrix tried, but their creators hate people.
Thanks! That series sounds interesting. I'm playing around with an essay that deals with how the original Star Trek series dealth with the subject of overpopulation.... it's interesting to me because I think the show was not only very humanist, but also quite Conservative. But there are some episodes where the surface argument is that some need to die so that a society can remain healthy. And of course there is the famous quote that "the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few... or the one."-
I'm always in favor of TOS analysis by a scholar and a friend of the era. Don't forget Conscience of the King, where overpopulation in a colony led to criminal prosecution and subsequent flight.
You missed one way in which leftists outsmarted themselves. The people least likely to listen to leftists have the most kids. For example, I have ten children, and at my church that's above average, but not by much.
Your Excellency, I can remember the new ice age stuff. I also remember my 15 year old self waiting impatiently for Logan's Run because.......I was in lust
with Farrah Fawcett. As was every teenage boy in 1976. The seventies were weird, our crowd didn't take that stuff too seriously.
Current TFR matches 1930s TFR. America's TFR has been dropping for 200 years. The Baby Boom was an aberration. We're just back into the early 1900s groove
It was also against the "not our kind" who were doing the populating. The rich can well off had children. They didn't want the lower classes having many, if any. If you look at a lot of the progressive woman like Gloria Steinem, they don't have any either. Having children is probably the most unselfish act two humans can do.
This stuff is so pervasive that it even infects the legitimately privileged brains of people like that embattled NPR CEO, who tweeted that she didn’t have kids because she was living “paycheck to paycheck” until her 30s. NYU grad, daughter of a Goldman Sachs exec, worked in international banking post-undergrad. Paycheck. To. Paycheck.
Right? It’s crazy. Of course she wasn’t willing to reveal her budget so we can’t know how she’s spending her money.
Great essay, MFW. They hate us. They really hate us.
There was a touch of early dystopian pessimism to some of our most interesting movies of the 1960s. A lot of this was Cold War pessimism, like Dr. Strangelove or even Planet of the Apes. We blew ourselves to hell!
But there was this undercurrent that we could be salvaged, even managed against our will. I recommend the 1970 Colossus: The Forbin Project. It’s like Skynet that doesn’t want to kill us (but will if it has to).
Humanity just cannot manage itself. It’s based on the first of a trilogy of books by D.F. Jones. The movie is great and ripe for a reboot, but I don’t trust anybody to do it.
The other books get progressively weirder. Colossus sets up and enforces human reproduction studies. But hang in there. There’s a happy ending.
One thing I liked about the Colossus series is that the computer, while properly an AI, understood it existed for the betterment of mankind. It was just a little bossy about it.
Nobody has been able to touch this dynamic. I think the Matrix tried, but their creators hate people.
Thanks! That series sounds interesting. I'm playing around with an essay that deals with how the original Star Trek series dealth with the subject of overpopulation.... it's interesting to me because I think the show was not only very humanist, but also quite Conservative. But there are some episodes where the surface argument is that some need to die so that a society can remain healthy. And of course there is the famous quote that "the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few... or the one."-
I'm always in favor of TOS analysis by a scholar and a friend of the era. Don't forget Conscience of the King, where overpopulation in a colony led to criminal prosecution and subsequent flight.
Remember the Star Trek episode on that overpopulated planet? It was really creepy.
Exactly the one I’m thinking about
Loved Collosus: The Forbin Project.
You missed one way in which leftists outsmarted themselves. The people least likely to listen to leftists have the most kids. For example, I have ten children, and at my church that's above average, but not by much.
That’s great! Demography is destiny, as they say
Your Excellency, I can remember the new ice age stuff. I also remember my 15 year old self waiting impatiently for Logan's Run because.......I was in lust
with Farrah Fawcett. As was every teenage boy in 1976. The seventies were weird, our crowd didn't take that stuff too seriously.
Yeah, if Jenny Agutter doesn’t make you think about sex, you need to get yourself checked out.
Current TFR matches 1930s TFR. America's TFR has been dropping for 200 years. The Baby Boom was an aberration. We're just back into the early 1900s groove