If we were a “body,” I might see the time of terror like the introduction of chemotherapy to cure cancer — but that leads to the dark thought of getting rid of the rampaging overpopulation of rogue cells…and at least based on our current science, it includes killing off a lot of healthy and NOT rogue cells at the same time, for want of a way to avoid that. But we are finding ways to attack the cancer of rogue cells to target only the ones who are part of the “disease.” That analogy then passes to — is it necessary for a great “die off” of the enormous population before we can regain ballance and Pardise?
Oh, horrid analogy, if curing the problem means culling people … I hate where that analogy leads… !!!!
I do think overpopulating our Earth was Defiant, and is now an enormous part of our Terror phase, and on our closed container {tiny planet}, the means of thinning our ranks are ongoing — war, pestilence, starvation, et al. There HAVE been movements to lower the rate of population growth, but right now, I’m hearing the push to have MORE kids to avoid being outnumbered by … Oh, man, I hate where the imagination goes there, too. Racism is causing us to be a cancer on our own planet?
Egad. Are we really less like lords of the planet and more like pieces on a chess board — or even just a bunch of checkers…
These conversations and ruminations from Mr. Hartmann are REVETING … So thought provoking …
Mr. Hartmann I like your interpretation of what happened with Cain and Able. it puts so much more meaning into the story. You have much more experience with contrasting cultures than I. You have an excellent imagination also and imagination is the fertile seed of all new worlds.
Many comments which I would like to make, popped into my mind as I read your thesis. But only a few have stuck in my mind as my eyes reached the end of your words.
First, the world is already into the second stage of the Demographic Transition. Fertility is below the 2.1 level needed to maintain a stationary population. I am saying stationary, not stable. Stable means a population is either growing or shrinking at a constant rate. Stationary means a population is neither growing nor shrinking. There is no rate of change at all. The majority of nations already experience a negative rate or zero rate, currently. Or they are close to this point. Certainly all the industrial nations are at this point. Most of the growth is in the African subcontinent. The reason for this apparent halt to the exponential growth of worldwide population appears to be urbanization. As the world is becoming increasingly urbanized the roles of women and children are changing. Children are an asset in a rural, agricultural society. But they are a liability in urban one. I think the reasons for this are easy for anyone to see. In an agricultural society children can work and produce for the family. In an urban society, it requires a large amount of money to be spent by parents on children until they reach an age of independence which is quite advanced by rural standards. Also in an urban society there is a wide variety of activities to put meaning into the lives of women. They acquire an education, enter the labor force in a meaningful way outside the confines of the nuclear family. They are more than just mothers.
A second comment which occurred to me is the trend pointed out by Leslie White years ago. It is this: each succeeding generation produces more energy per capita than the preceding one. Never does this process reverse. Never. This is part of a much ontologically larger process involving the nature of life itself and the second law of thermodynamics which I do not want to go into just now. A proper explanation requires me to use diagrams which I cannot produce on my computer. Also, it is late for me and I am elderly. My apologies.
THAT is the monstrous thought that arises, isn’t it … But, this is all analogy and interpretation … we CAN lead it in varying directions based on our own anxieties or prejudgments.
Fascinating …
If we were a “body,” I might see the time of terror like the introduction of chemotherapy to cure cancer — but that leads to the dark thought of getting rid of the rampaging overpopulation of rogue cells…and at least based on our current science, it includes killing off a lot of healthy and NOT rogue cells at the same time, for want of a way to avoid that. But we are finding ways to attack the cancer of rogue cells to target only the ones who are part of the “disease.” That analogy then passes to — is it necessary for a great “die off” of the enormous population before we can regain ballance and Pardise?
Oh, horrid analogy, if curing the problem means culling people … I hate where that analogy leads… !!!!
I do think overpopulating our Earth was Defiant, and is now an enormous part of our Terror phase, and on our closed container {tiny planet}, the means of thinning our ranks are ongoing — war, pestilence, starvation, et al. There HAVE been movements to lower the rate of population growth, but right now, I’m hearing the push to have MORE kids to avoid being outnumbered by … Oh, man, I hate where the imagination goes there, too. Racism is causing us to be a cancer on our own planet?
Egad. Are we really less like lords of the planet and more like pieces on a chess board — or even just a bunch of checkers…
These conversations and ruminations from Mr. Hartmann are REVETING … So thought provoking …
Mr. Hartmann I like your interpretation of what happened with Cain and Able. it puts so much more meaning into the story. You have much more experience with contrasting cultures than I. You have an excellent imagination also and imagination is the fertile seed of all new worlds.
Many comments which I would like to make, popped into my mind as I read your thesis. But only a few have stuck in my mind as my eyes reached the end of your words.
First, the world is already into the second stage of the Demographic Transition. Fertility is below the 2.1 level needed to maintain a stationary population. I am saying stationary, not stable. Stable means a population is either growing or shrinking at a constant rate. Stationary means a population is neither growing nor shrinking. There is no rate of change at all. The majority of nations already experience a negative rate or zero rate, currently. Or they are close to this point. Certainly all the industrial nations are at this point. Most of the growth is in the African subcontinent. The reason for this apparent halt to the exponential growth of worldwide population appears to be urbanization. As the world is becoming increasingly urbanized the roles of women and children are changing. Children are an asset in a rural, agricultural society. But they are a liability in urban one. I think the reasons for this are easy for anyone to see. In an agricultural society children can work and produce for the family. In an urban society, it requires a large amount of money to be spent by parents on children until they reach an age of independence which is quite advanced by rural standards. Also in an urban society there is a wide variety of activities to put meaning into the lives of women. They acquire an education, enter the labor force in a meaningful way outside the confines of the nuclear family. They are more than just mothers.
A second comment which occurred to me is the trend pointed out by Leslie White years ago. It is this: each succeeding generation produces more energy per capita than the preceding one. Never does this process reverse. Never. This is part of a much ontologically larger process involving the nature of life itself and the second law of thermodynamics which I do not want to go into just now. A proper explanation requires me to use diagrams which I cannot produce on my computer. Also, it is late for me and I am elderly. My apologies.
Doesn't the story from Genesis also indicate that Yahweh prefers a blood sacrifice to an offering of fruit and vegetables?
THAT is the monstrous thought that arises, isn’t it … But, this is all analogy and interpretation … we CAN lead it in varying directions based on our own anxieties or prejudgments.
Indeed. and our prejudgment may want us to ignore the posssible monstrous interpretation.Yet, how could there be an offering of fat without a killing.
This assumes the bible is the "Word of God". Perhaps, as Einstein wrote in a private letter: “The word ‘God’ is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses; the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends,” https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/observations/einsteins-famous-god-letter-is-up-for-auction/