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No More Overseas Travel? - Running out of oil? 6-Nov-2007 At 2:35:46 PM Take!

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I’m sorry that my decision has the potential to make others feel guilty, truly.
I’m also sorry I used the term “wealthy westernized society”, I was trying to convey societies with very high relative consumption per head of population.

I think the pauline hanson remark may be because of your posts seeming inference that westerners are the only type of person capable of reasoning and capable of having a global view - that westerners somehow have a monopoly on being responsible and that the rest don’t care. I don’t think the ability to care and make good decisions is genetic.

“another by-product of not having children is that the political influence of that part of society gets decreased”.
This argument also seems to assume strict genetic links with higher thinking behavior, in particular - voting. This is flawed, even if there were a genetic basis - how many of us sit and agree totally with the previous generations beliefs and values?
Once again I bring your attention to the theory that memes will outrun and overpower the influence of genes in a post industrial age, conscious thinking society.
Education and the elimination of dogma could give less wealthy societies the chance to make decisions that might align better with the future of the world. Whether this is successful would depend how fast they ascend (or descend, depending on your view of us) through the spiral dynamics of societal thinking and which levels they pause at.
There is so much to discuss here, it could become an essay.

“you're failing to see the difference between population and consumption”
I think the difference between the two is my reason for my choice. A child in our society will consume many times more than a child in less affable societies (there are some numbers out there - anyone). It will also do it for a longer amount of years. Even by default and with best intentions - just the bare infrastructure for ‘our way of life’ consumes many times more than other societies. This is the difference, no?

"niche in society"
I don’t own one, ultimately we don't own anything. To think that one does and that it can be maintained or expanded by out-breeding another tribe is not logic suited to todays circumstances. We are way beyond that stage, the planet will not suffer us learning that lesson again. Tribal thinking worked, a looong time ago. Well it never really ‘worked’ but it was part of the evolution and learning process for us.
We made it through that phase simply because there weren’t that many of us around back then…

“silly”
Silly is being reckless with our consumption, especially when that includes the undiscerning intake of memes.