Mastodawn

I think about this a lot.

Leonard Ritter Jul 10

@pezmico it is not enough to recognize but one must also stop this mind virus* from propagating. the core counterargument is: there is more than enough space for twice more people as we are today. all it requires is a reduction in waste production, and there are so many blatantly optimizable avenues here. as long as states refuse to cooperate even on the bare humane minimum to stop global warming, we don't need to discuss killing people.

* as in "meme"; see ff discussion

Leonard Ritter Jul 10

@pezmico or, even better put as i have once heard a character say this in fiction: "you just want to kill people. you can't wait to do it."

@lritter I agree with you, but want to point out how pervasive eugenic thinking is in a lot of us, unwillingly and unconsciously. You respond to a warning about eugenics with the right-wing eugenic "mind virus" while there are very good words like e.g. "ideology." And I'm sorry to say, words do matter in fighting supremacist and eugenic thinking.

Leonard Ritter Jul 10

@Heidentweet @pezmico ideology is not a good word either. nothing is good words because the fuckers (there's a good word) take whatever verbiage intellectuals like us come up with and misappropriate it to attack the ideas that we hold dear.

in german parliament, putin's far right party frequently uses the word "ideology" to describe the fight against global warming.

nothing is good words and yet we need to speak.

@lritter @Heidentweet @pezmico "Mind virus" is problematic specifically because it relies on the idea of sickness as making people "bad." Viruses do not make people into Nazis. Being sick makes you less privileged and more in danger, sick people are othered by society which prevents them from accessing help. One of the ways that we other sickness is by correlating sickness with things like right-wing ideologies.

This is not about how right-wing pundits learn the vocabulary of leftists and weaponize it. This is about ableism.

Leonard Ritter Jul 10

@s3a @Heidentweet @pezmico you misunderstand. this is more like a computer virus. but yes. do not use the term "mind virus". i used a more popular interpretation of the idea of memes. but meme is also burned. we'll have that discussion every other week. best is we use no term for longer than 3 days.

@lritter @Heidentweet @pezmico I don't misunderstand. Your words have impact beyond your intent and you are being informed of that harmful impact. You're welcome to keep using the harmful words you've chosen to use, but you will be doing so knowing you are participating in the very harms you're trying to rail against going forward.

Leonard Ritter Jul 10

@s3a @Heidentweet @pezmico got it. thank you for educating me.

Melvin Gundlach Jul 10

@pezmico It's the exact same ideology we already hear with COVID.

John Maxwell Jul 10

@pezmico The amazing thing to me in that mindset is their absolute certainty that they will survive.

Grant (solely for the purpose of illustration) every bit of their shitty attitude, you'd still have to be very stupid to be certain you'd survive.

Cersei Trannister Jul 10

@pezmico This theory fits with conservative goals now

Infrogmation Jul 10

Hi from New Orleans, aware this was already happening in 2005.

Nol Malone ☭Jul 10

@pezmico Exactly. We do not have a population problem, we have a capitalism problem. Mao was right. The wealthy would rather kill everyone than let go of their wealth. We fight their greed, or they kill everyone. It's that simple.

Jon Sullivan Jul 11

@anolandria @pezmico I'm not sure about this. I don't see over-consumption and over-population as mutually exclusive here. They can both be problems for the planet, even if one (over-consumption by wealthy countries) is currently the bigger impact.

8.2 billion is *a lot* of people and it's hard to imagine this many of us living comfortably and safely on our one planet for even hundreds of years, without massive social, economic, and technological changes.

I'm in New Zealand and 8.2 billion people living even like a low income New Zealander would very quickly wreck the world. Yet, as a country NZ is never going to give away most of its wealth to poorer countries.

Thinking longer term will need us to find a better balance between per-person consumption and population size, one that fits within what the planet can sustainably provide for us.

(Sorry for the long response. I have no idea how we get to there from the mess we're in now.)

Marc "Anarchy" Godin Jul 14

@joncounts @anolandria @pezmico "It's hard to imagine" isn't an argument, friend.

Matt McIrvin Jul 10

@pezmico this kind of thinking was big among ostensibly environmentalist writers in the 60s and 70s when the big worry was overpopulation. At the time, of course, most of the less developed world had very high birthrates so it conveniently put the onus on poor countries, not rich ones. There was a lot of ugly just under the surface.

BoneHouseWasps🔶🇬🇧🇪🇺Jul 10

@pezmico It's why Trump's backers want Denmark and Canada - they need somewhere to go to escape the poors.

Passwordsarehard4 Jul 10

@pezmico scarcity forces people to actually examine who they consider in thier group. Some consider all life on earth as one group, David Attenborough I would imagine is amoung them. Some only consider humans, Bill Gates eliminating polio from his group. Sometimes the group is smaller, some people feel like taking care of themselves trumps everything and everyone else. It’s how people treat those outsiders that tell you who they are, not those closest to them.

Stanley Grill, Composer Jul 10

@pezmico I think about that a lot too. The part of the world that contributes the most greenhouse gases will NOT be the part of the world that suffers the most.

Forza4galicia Jul 10

@pezmico Really, nothing is inevitable except climate situation gets worse so fast that the invitability is for all human beings, really.

In all cases: or all or noone.

Adrien Plazas Jul 10

@pezmico Which reminds me of Jean-Marc Jancovici a lot. Or Anti Tech Resistance.

Adrien Plazas Jul 10

@pezmico Si y'en a qui doutent toujours que Jean-Marc Jancovici est de la graine de fascite, lisez ça, et allez écouter ses dernières sorties populationistes.

ouroukaye Jul 10

@KekunPlazas @pezmico celui qui a dit que chaque citoyen ne devrait avoir droit qu'à un seul trajet par avion dans sa vie ? ça me semblait plutôt égalitaire comme discours, plutôt que favorisant une élite

Adrien Plazas Jul 10

@ouroukaye On parle eugénisme dans les milieux écologistes et donc écofascisme, je dis qu'il a un discours populationniste en lieu avec l'écologie, et tu réponds un truc complètement à côté du sujet. On trouve assez facilement ses positions écofascistes sur la démographie.

ouroukaye Jul 10

@KekunPlazas un fasciste eugéniste qui propose des solutions égalitaires, ça me semble un peu paradoxal. je m'attendrais plutôt à ce qu'il propose des solutions favorisant les individus "valables".
j'ai entré "j m jancovici population" sur google et je tombe seulement sur des discours disant que la surpopulation mondiale va poser des problèmes. J'ai pas vu autre chose que ça, j'ai peut être loupé mais je chercherai plus tard.

Maximilian Overdraft, Esq.Jul 10

I mostly think about how easy it is for people to let wildlife, i.e., animals of other species, and plants and bugs, die in "natural disasters" or "manmade disasters" and how easy it is to go from a mindset of neglect of the consequences of our actions toward other creatures, to a mindset of neglect toward members of our own species, which we also neglect, but also favor when it comes to ideologies.

This mindset that neglects nature will also neglect any human being's nature, and will consider it subjugable.

Elias Probst Jul 17

@aka_quant_noir I think it all comes down to make people aware of their own internalized ways of thinking and whether they apply them unprocessed to how they act and what they communicate.

E.g. every person is (unknowingly) more or less racist due to various reasons.

The question is: how do people translate this internal biases into words and actions? Are they even aware of their biases? If so: are they willing (even capable) to differentiate between their thoughts and actions?

David McMullin Jul 10

@pezmico
Eugenicist logic has been especially easy to spot since COVID hit—unfortunately, it turns out to be how most people think. (I note the date on that screenshot is from 2019.)

Ariadna Vigo Jul 10

@pezmico Necropolitics are in full swing...

Ciarán McNally Jul 12

@pezmico "Nuclear winter will save us from the climate emergency." - World leaders probably

Karl Heinz Häsliprinz Jul 12

@pezmico The fossil fuel industry is an atmospheric weapon of mass destruction. It has been fired by people in temperate climates and will kill mostly people in tropical climates. It's thus a racially targeted tool of genocide.

Michael Busch Jul 12

I will just go through the replies here and block the couple of accounts who will show up trying to excuse treating anyone as expendable.

@pezmico Yes, they believe not just climate disaster but also the spread of disease (see: pandemic) is to their own advantage because they believe they are superior and thus "survivors".

Its a branch of Social Darwinism, a pseudo-scientific view on natural selection.

@pezmico Pop critiques of eugenics often don't address the underlying SD idea, but SD is the science-y part that people find attractive.

Whispering Hek Jul 17

@tasket @pezmico no mystery here. its the real rule of law in the US

Carolleisa Jul 14

@pezmico Summarizing what Dante intimates in the Inferno: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality"

ko kāihe toku ingoa 🫏Jul 14

@pezmico @chartier Somewhat relatedly, I find it “interesting” just how different Trumps response is to bad things happening in one of his states (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8zjk5yx8wo), versus similar things happening in one that doesn’t belong to him. (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/top-house-republican-says-should-be-conditions-california-wildfire-aid-2025-01-13/)

Camp Mystic buildings were removed from flood map, US media reports - BBC News

The camp where 27 girls died successfully challenged initial risk designations by US regulators, according to reports.

BBC News

leguinian_utopia Jul 14

@pezmico Thank you, human beings deserve to be on this planet like all other life. The forces of capitalism that drive the climate crisis are hurting us too. We cannot separate ourselves from the rest of the world but that means we *belong* here too. "Humans are the virus" types are on the eco-fascist pipeline and it's never the top few percents they consider these oh so terrible parasites, the ones actually benefitting from wrecking the Earth...

JWcph, Radicalized By Decency Jul 14

@pezmico Innit funny how people who think somebody needs to die for something never mean themselves...?

×

Nol Malone ☭Jul 10

@pezmico Exactly. We do not have a population problem, we have a capitalism problem. Mao was right. The wealthy would rather kill everyone than let go of their wealth. We fight their greed, or they kill everyone. It's that simple.

Jon Sullivan Jul 11

@anolandria @pezmico I'm not sure about this. I don't see over-consumption and over-population as mutually exclusive here. They can both be problems for the planet, even if one (over-consumption by wealthy countries) is currently the bigger impact.

8.2 billion is *a lot* of people and it's hard to imagine this many of us living comfortably and safely on our one planet for even hundreds of years, without massive social, economic, and technological changes.

I'm in New Zealand and 8.2 billion people living even like a low income New Zealander would very quickly wreck the world. Yet, as a country NZ is never going to give away most of its wealth to poorer countries.

Thinking longer term will need us to find a better balance between per-person consumption and population size, one that fits within what the planet can sustainably provide for us.

(Sorry for the long response. I have no idea how we get to there from the mess we're in now.)

Marc "Anarchy" Godin Jul 14

@joncounts @anolandria @pezmico "It's hard to imagine" isn't an argument, friend.