Category: Random

Quite recently I read an opinion in the New York Times with the remarkable title ‘Overpopulation Is Not the Problem‘. In this article the author—a trained ecologist—argues that there is no such thing as a carrying capacity for mankind on this earth. He begins his argument by stating that humans have always altered ecosystems, and thereby increased the planet’s carrying capacity for mankind. Furthermore, the use of tools, domesticating animals for consumption, agriculture and the practice of cooking food to optimally obtain nutrients are also cited as historic examples of mankind using his unbridled ingenuity to increase the amount of resources at his disposal, thus making larger human populations possible. As a biologist myself, I always thought that the actual carrying capacity was a very difficult thing to determine. In fact, as far as I know scientific literature tells us that the actual carrying capacity is pretty much unknown (see for example the research of J.E. Cohen). I was therefore intrigued by this provocative statement and interested to learn on what profound insights and evidence this bold claim is based.

But I am soon disappointed. Because the author then simply begins extrapolating aforementioned historic achievements far into the future, and that’s where it all goes wrong. He begins by writing that the world population now stands at roughly 7.2 billion people, and that by the year 2050 this number is estimated to increase to 9 billion. But then he quotes the United Nations’ estimate that if—and boy what a big ‘if’, in fact it’s so big it deserves to be written in capitals and bold font—IF rich countries invest a huge amount of money in foreign infrastructure, trade, anti-poverty and food security, then the earth will be able to sustain this number. I just have to laugh at this point—just look at the current state of affairs on our planet! Going from that mess to a global end to poverty, universal fair trade, food security for all and nice roads for everyone to drive on in less than 37 years seems to me nothing more than a fancy for naive dreamers. But even if this all did succeed somehow, and I really hope it does by the way, then I still don’t see how that implies there is no final limit to the carrying capacity of our planet.

The article continues by claiming that future improvements in the social and technological systems will probably triumph over limiting environmental factors. But how can anyone be sure of that? How do past successes guarantee future successes? I would say that sounds suspiciously like an economic bubble—or should I say an ecological bubble? And what kind of living standards are we talking about here? What is to be done about the increased risk of catastrophic pandemics, due to the increase in population density? And growing beef  for untold billions of people hardly seems sustainable, so must we all become vegetarians? How do we make sure there is enough fish in the sea for an infinite number of people? The whole article seems to entirely bypass the question of what kind of quality of life people will have as the population increases. People are also in this regard nothing like bacteria on a petri dish—just enough resources to survive and reproduce is quite simply not good enough for humans. Beyond the bottom-up factors that limit the carrying capacity, such as food and water, the author also seems to ignore the top-down factors such as infectious diseases. Or is as yet uninvented technology always going to be able to take care of that as well?

Some resources are simply finite, once we use them up they are gone. At the moment, mankind is consuming resources at an unsustainable rate and this problem is only exacerbated by a growing global population. That is an issue our ancestors neither faced nor solved, so simply declaring that we will always be able to find ways to increase the carrying capacity just because our ancestors managed to do so in the past, is patently something no one can say with certainty. Another lesson history has taught us is that putting your faith in science and technology to solve all the world’s problems is not only the height of hubris, but may also have catastrophic consequences for our world, as was for example illustrated in Rachel Carson’s classic book ‘Silent Spring’. We don’t merely shape ecosystems, we also destroy them. So indeed the author is quite right when he concludes the last sentence with ‘…the environment will be what we make of it.‘ The article ultimately makes no reference to convincing scientific evidence in support of its main claim and fails to provide truly compelling arguments to justify such an extremely optimistic and rather arrogant Anthropocene outlook. I think a problem as big as overpopulation deserves better than that.

The case of Trayvon Martin’s shooting by George Zimmerman has stirred up a lot of emotions in the USA. But while I understand how a verdict of not guilty in this particular case might provoke intense reactions, agreeing with some of these reactions is another kettle of fish altogether.

For example, there are many who will say that Zimmerman could have avoided the fatal confrontation. In fact he had been told by the emergency services not to confront Trayvon Martin, but Zimmerman chose to ignore that advice. So prima facie this point seems to have some merit, he was in his car and could just have stayed there to avoid the whole thing. But that fails to take into account that Zimmerman is a member of the neighborhood watch of the gated-community where he lived, a community that had seen a number of burglaries, thefts and even one shooting in the year prior to this case. So staying in the car would have been a pretty lame thing to do, if you ask me. Besides, what’s wrong with just asking what someone is doing in the area? This is not exactly a public road after all, but a residential area surrounded by a big fence and monitored with a camera surveillance system. And also there is no solid evidence to suggest that Zimmerman intentionally confronted Martin anyway.

Then there are others who will have you believe that the fatal shooting would have resulted in a murder conviction if Trayvon Martin had been white, or even that the whole shooting wouldn’t have happened altogether if that had been the case. Well firstly, it’s not really fair to base conclusions like that on hypothetical scenarios. If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, wouldn’t we all have a Merry Christmas? Secondly, I might have understood this argument if George Zimmerman had been a white man who was in the habit of baking swastika shaped cookies on Sunday mornings, greeting people by shouting ‘Heil Hitler’ at them and spreading neonazi propaganda. But no, Zimmerman is in fact of Hispanic ethnicity and even appears to have dated an African American girl at some point in his life. Not exactly the kind of background easily associated with someone nursing a penchant for racialism. Furthermore, the recording of the call made to the police by Zimmerman shows that he made no reference to Martin’s race until the policeman on the other side of the line asked for that information. So there is simply no concrete indication that racism was a factor in this tragic case. What’s more, we only need to remember the outcome of the infamous O.J. Simpson double-murder trial to see that as far as racial factors influencing justice is concerned, the American legal system has much improved. I think it is now widely believed that O.J. Simpson was guilty of the double homicide, and if that is true we are actually talking about an African American getting away with murder! See? What more could you ask for?

No, the heart of the matter here is that George Zimmerman was legally licensed to own a gun. Not only that, he was also legally licenced to carry his deadly weapon concealed, fully loaded, on his person, out in public. And then finally there is the so-called ‘stand your ground‘ law which says that in any sufficiently serious conflict a person is not required to first try and retreat to safety, but instead is justified to shoot first and ask questions later. Apparently Mr Zimmerman’s lawyers did not even use the stand-your-ground law in his defense, because they argued that Zimmerman never had the opportunity to flee. But nevertheless I feel it is worth mentioning here—even if he could have fled, he would still have been well in his right to shoot. So what we have here then is a deadly set of laws that combine to effectively set the stage for wild-west situations. What evidence there was clearly suggested that Zimmerman simply exercised all his rights, and he was therefore quite justly acquitted of the charges brought against him. Because let’s face it, if you’re going to say it’s ok to carry a loaded gun everywhere and start shooting as soon as you feel threatened, then you are also going to look pretty ridiculous if you start complaining when that actually happens. Yeehaw!

Social media are unquestionably a big hit and one of the biggest out there is Facebook with over a billion users worldwide. And one of the most successful features of Facebook is the so-called ‘like-button’, which is so great a phenomenon by itself that it even has its own wikipedia page. Such is the impact of the like button that I’m almost certain that at some point in the near future the dictionary definition of the word ‘liking’ will also include the very act of  clicking on that classic blue ‘thumbs-up’ icon.

Now while most uses for the like-button are entirely innocuous, I have been noticing a trend of some individuals posting a photograph accompanied by a message in the caption and some request to ‘like and share’ the item in question. Usually such photographs will depict a tragic scene, or some self-proclaimed ‘miracle’, or perhaps simply a ‘beautiful message’ either by some random swami guru from Timbuktu or Albert Einstein—the latter sometimes entirely misquoted, by the way. Then the strategy appears to involve playing on the emotional response the message may evoke in people to elicit a ‘like’ action from the viewers.

Here’s how it seems to work as I see it. Someone just uploads a dramatic image, such as say that of an intubated child, wearing a sad expression, apparently bedridden in a hospital and surrounded by life support machines. The poster then adds a lengthy caption with a touching explanation, such as that it’s someone’s son lying there and that he has a rare heart condition, that he is still on the waiting list for a heart transplant and that he would love nothing more than to play baseball with his friends again. This is then followed by a dedication, like for everyone whose life has been affected by heart-transplant waiting lists or whatever.  It could be real, or just invented… who knows? The main thing is that in the end it concludes with what I would consider to be a form of emotional blackmail. Because not only does it end with a request to ‘like and share’ the post, but then also invariably includes the condition that you should only do so if you care.

If I care? What is this nonsense? And other varieties on this theme also exist. For example sometimes such concluding remarks are phrased in the form of a cynical premonition, such as ‘I know some of you won’t share this, but those who care will’. And on occasion the caption will even bluntly state outright that if you ignore the message and don’t click on the like button right away, then you really don’t care. But whatever the exact wording, the emotional blackmail always operates by exploiting the false assertion that not liking is equal to not caring. Of course I care! Who wouldn’t? But excuse me all over the place if that doesn’t mean I’m going to spam all my friends with pseudo-philosophical or quasi philanthropic mumbo jumbo just because I get some kind of guilt trip laid on me if I don’t.

So what is up with these kind of messages on facebook? What is really behind them? It would appear that in some cases the motivation to post such messages are actually driven less by raising awareness for a particular issue or a desire to impart some words of wisdom unto the world, and more by economic factors. In fact there seems to be a whole business revolving around liking stuff on facebook and it’s called ‘Like Farming‘. Like Farming is essentially a scam that works by first creating a facebook page and then trying to get posts on that page to go viral by any means. This in turn generates more ‘likes’ for that page, and as subsequent posts on pages that you’ve liked will also show up in your news feed things start to get interesting. Because having access to so many news feeds means that when a page has been liked a lot, it becomes very attractive for businesses to advertise on it, or for one company buy it and then use it for marketing purposes. So how do you discriminate between innocent posts and the ones with financial motives in mind? I suppose just by realizing that no message worth liking or sharing should require any encouragement to do so.