Message-ID: <32DE857B.5FF4@mind.net> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 19:46:03 +0000 From: "B. Diamond" <mailto:bdiamond@MIND.NET> Subject: Re: What kind of technology do WE need? To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Valerie Bruce wrote:> I know very little about this topic, but it seems to be I've heard that
> agricultural production has in fact INcreased, not DEcreased, at least in
> the "developed" world. Can anyone substantiate this position?
According to "State of the World 1996," The 1996 carryover stocks of grain, the amount in the bin when the new harvest begins-- is 245 million tons, down from 294 tons in 1995...the third consecutive annual decline will reduce stocks to an estimated 49 days of consumption, the lowest level on record."
> B. Diamond also wrote:
>
> >Wilbur, I would imagine that if you asked most alcoholics or drug addicts
> if they
> >were happy with their lives, they'd say "yes," otherwise they wouldn't still be
> >alcoholics and drug addicts, right?
>
> Excuse me? How you could possibly imagine that alcoholics/drug addicts
> are happy with their lives is beyond me. And to suggest that they remain
> alcoholics/drug addicts because they're happy is another incredulous statement.
The point, Valerie, is that alcoholics and addicts are in denial, that is they percieve the costs of changing (sobering up) as greater than the cost of remaining an addict, so they tell themselves that they're fine--no problem. We are doing the same thing by refusing to deal with the fact that we refuse to address the overpopulation issue while our patterns of consumption rise steadily--rather than change (to avoid collapse) we instead tell ourselves that everything is o.k., surely there are scientists working on the problems who will any day now announce a solution top the problems that plague us. It is called denial.