the last thing that I have to say about these kinds of posts..

if you haven't read Angrymom's Child Protection Services you'll see that no mod in there held back from voicing their opinion in a negative way.

Again, you get slack if you've been here for some time, but if it's your first post, again, it doesn't seem like you'll be contributing too much to the community.

Oh dear god........

I just realized something......

Lebell, Tecoyah, and I all had the same reaction to this thread.

Perhaps it IS the end of the world. Hold me!

so somehow...the OP was supposed to interpret "I'm glad you're going to die off" to mean, "please don't just post a bunch of crazy links without your opinion attached to it?"

Cyn--I don't see how you can compare a woman who potentially abuses her children to an organization of people who don't want to have children in the hopes of easing overpopulation.

I am not comparing the topics, I am comparing the FIRST posts of ROOKIES.

cyn--reading through Angrymom's post, it looks like you and the other Mods handled things the way I usually see them handled. You, cyn, are kind and civil at the beginning and asked for more information about the situation. After she provided a bit more info, you said you had doubts about her side of the story but that you would 'reserve judgement' until there was more info. Mal did similarly--even saying, 'let's not all jump on angrymom here' near the beginning of the thread. Only after more facts became known did you start coming out with stronger statements. And even the strong statements say things like "you made some really bad choices", not "I'll be glad when you rot in jail."

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be comparing between that post and this one.

A couple of quick thoughts on this; I read it earlier today and wasn't sure that I wanted to post anything.

1. I don't think the site, nor the organization, are purely tongue-in-cheek, nor do they simply seem to be advocating an extreme position to make the less extreme "population control" option seem more viable. My reading of the site leaves the impression that they believe in exactly what they are saying - while allowing that everyone who contributes the site doesn't necessarily hold the most extreme position. I think they are trying to leave the doors open to people of less extreme positions, but that doesn't mean that the actual position adopted and defended in the content of the site/organization is any less extreme that that they actually advocate.

2. I seem to recall a lot of conversation regarding whether or not we actually want moderators to avoid stating their opinions in these kind of threads. If we're going to expect them to be (cue Steven Seagal) "above the law;" then we have to cleanse all the smartassery that flies around on the boards, and probably give them a non-descript "Moderator" login which they use to "moderate," and regular usernames they use to contribute. They're not just moderators; they're members too. Some of the mods basically gave a reaction of "are you fucking kidding me?" - that's true. However, as far as I know discussion has been allowed both advocating and disavowing the position of the OP; I don't see how the OP should have been intimidated from following up or trying to defend his/her position.

3. I personally agree that people should be more careful when bringing new people into existance, and that we should consider options like adoption more often than people do; it's not clear that eliminating humans from the picture will make everything all rosy and great. Bad things happened with the dinosaurs, etc. The biggest motivation for humanity to regulate its birth rate, it's release of toxic and non-biodegradable substances in the environment, and it's consumption of natural resources is the continued survival of humanity - not the continued survival of everything else. If we send it all straight to shit; things will evolve again (as the site noted, and of course this assumes one believes in such pesky notions as evolution - otherwise, it can all just be created again, etc) and nothing will have changed in the net. Let's just suppose that humans evolved in response to a natural progression of events, which would lead to the development of an "intelligent" species which could destroy all life on planet Earth; what is to say that if humans were removed by a baby-making strike, that a similar life form wouldn't just evolve to replace us. It would seem more probable, if one accepts the basic premise of the organization that we will eventually destroy all life in Matrix-like viral infection of Earth, that we are here to learn how to embrace sustainable and responsible lifestyles. Why must one adopt the position that we are, in the long term as a species, the problem and not the potential solution, so to speak?

edit: i had misconjugated a verb

Final Thoughts
 

My intent in this thread was not to state opinion....but rather to remove what I considered to be a potential Spammer. The links, and status of the person in question indicated potential for the thread being considered propoganda....and the job of your Moderators is to weed this out of the community before it makes this a lesser place. It may be interesting to members to understand the thinking here:

When we see these things appear in your community....we must decide quickly if it is "worthy" of TFP...and act decisively. In this case we did not....and instead let the thread stand (against better judgement in some minds), as it was borderline. Had we decided to Ban and delete none of this would be an issue, as you all would have never seen it in the first place. Moderation will never be perfect, and personality, as well as opinion will be a part of it regardless of how we may avoid posting to appear unbiased. But, the reality remains.....we do the best job we can, to make this place what it is, and what you see as bias, or opinion on a matter...usually has much more behind it than you know.

Well, neo-ocelot... if you ever come back to read this...

I do agree that there is a problem, but it's not an issue of overpopulation. See, in nature, overpopulation is generally taken care of by predators, diseases or disasters. With humans, we have found ways to overcome MOST of these issues. The problem, however, is not that there are too many humans. The problem is that humans feel (generally) very little need to be in their natural state. I'm not saying, either, that technology is wholly bad. I love technology. But thigns could be more earth friendly. We can make enough food (and already do, actually) to support several billion more humans than there are. The reason some people starve is due to human politics and culture. We can make cars that run on hydrogen and we CAN make hydrogen fuels themselves in environmentally friendly ways. But there are human politics and money issues involved.

It's more than population.

I find myself in complete agreement....and if Ustwo chimes in as well....I will pass out

The point of our genes is to propegate themselves, we're just here for the ride.

Personally, if you feel that this movement is good for you, go for it, don't breed, keep the gene pool nice and warm for the rest of us.

I agree. I don't mean to hold mods to a higher standard--I mean to hold them to the same standard as everyone else. My understanding is that personal attacks aren't allowed at TFP. Saying you're glad that someone won't be having any children is a personal attack.

I would have had no problem if they had said, "that's a load of bullshit."

Then you have my personal apology.....seriously....I for one will not do so again.

What is a humans natural state?

If you look at countries where they have an overpopulation vrs those where we have a stable or population in decline, the countries in population decline are all wealthy and high technology. The populations on the rise are those in countries with little technology and poor economies. When you are well fed and well off you can turn off those survival genes that say 'make more babies' and start to rationalize things like having children.

Whatever is done lowering the standard of living is not the answer, if anything we need to raise it across the board. The problem with more 'earth friendly' concepts is they lower or in some cases VASTLY lower the standard of living.

Based on the content of the website it was a bit of sarcastic black humor.

Its not the same as saying 'I hope you die'.

Lighten up.

Not true.

* Organic meats and vegetables: Negatives? They cost more. Positives? They put less harmful chemicals into the environment and into our bodies making us and the Earth healthier.

* Recycling: Negatives? If done wrong, can be harmful to the environment. Positives? If done right, can be quite beneficial. Recycling can also go on ad infinitum, more or less. Plastic bags turn into pop bottles which can turn back into bags, or sandwich bags or milk jugs which can be recycled back into pop bottles. This goes for most metals and paper and MOST plastics. Also less of a need to deforest the planet entirely.

* Alternative fuels: Negatives? High cost in R&D. Also can be bad if done wrong. Positives? Hydrogen and electric vehicles could SIGNIFICANTLY reduce ozone depleting chemicals and smog producers. The creation of electricity can be done using solar/wind/water power for ultra-clean, and controlled nuclear power for semi-clean (still much better than coal and the like which is used is many countries around the world, including the US). Hydrogen can be created using reduction methods that do not have harmful byproducts.

* Soaps and detergents: Negatives? Neutral and biodegradeable products are considered "niche" and are more expensive. If they were requested 100% then they would not be niche and would cost less (probably not as much as 'cheaper' stuff, but still). Positives? They are better for you, the Earth, animals that must swim in, live in or drink our planets water.


I'd be interested to hear about "earth friendly" options that would lower the standard of living in civilized countries.

Negatives, lower crop yields on top of the higher cost. Mmmm doesn't sound good for feeding the growing population. This will be handled of course by genetic modification.

Negatives, higher costs in some cases than making the product new. Recycling is fine but won't solve the population puzzle.

This one is the kicker. THIS is where the standard of living takes the dive. Cheap and plentiful energy = higher standard of living. Currently solar, water, and wind can't do it. Nuclear is fine with me, but anything that makes energy more expensive is bad.

Very minor problem, the real water problem in most areas is fertilizer run off.

I was reading that figuring how to respond. I love listening to how people spend enough time figuring out how we are the big problem and that we should die, etc. I reminds me of a philosophy major I once knew, he said he got a degree in Philosophy, which granted him the legal right to "think deep thoughts about being unemployed." Maybe if they put a little less effort into this movement, and a little more effort into making their lives, and only 2 other lives a little bit better, then perhaps a small percentage of this world would be better.

As you wish.

What you posted is a load of bullshit :icare:

Actually, I'm going to do (most of) that now. Not that it matters much at this point, but looking into the "user's" registration info and times, he is very clearly a spammer who had no intention of participating in this community whatsoever, or in actually having any discussion in this thread. THAT is why he didn't return (except once, 2 months later, most likely to check on the status of his spam), not because he was scared off by relatively mild comments of dark humor regarding the absurdity of his spammed website. I have nothing fundamentally against voluntary population control whatsoever (although I do doubt it's ability to have any effect), but I *DO* have something against spammers.

I'm leaving this thread open, however, because an interesting discussion has somehow popped up (and not the one I'm responding to).

Agreed. I'm not trying to down anybody here, but these people are fucking nuts. People are part of nature, as much as you want to deny it, it just happens that we can make tools to kill things better; and reproducing is about as natural as it gets. Aren't most people afraid of one type of animal or another (e.g. bears, sharks)? Note to these people: we can't let plants, animals, and shit die out because we need to kill them to survive.

FUnny lebell. :) But may I direct you to this thread, which you closed down and (rightfully) criticized others (myself included) for attacking a new poster. I took your criticism to heart.

EDIT: whoops, I see it was analog who shut it down. I guess you're off the hook lebell--nevermind then.

Geeze, you just can't please some people :D

Seriously,

I don't know what the issue is here.

I think everyone else saw what I wrote for what it was; tongue in cheek sarcasm directed towards what appears to be a spammer.

I'm sorry that anyone took it for putting down a noobie, but in retrospect, I don't see that I would have done it any differently except maybe banning the original poster as a spammer.

I wholeheartedly agree with this movement!

But not for the reason you might think!

If they all stop breeding, that just means that the world's managed to get rid of a few more undesirables fom the gene pool, meaning things will be better for the rest of us :D

Higher cost is a result of a lot of political bullshit as well, though. Realistically, the cost isn't THAT much higher. People should be more worried about eating healthy food than going to the new TOm Cruise movie. Remember, until only a hundred years ago or so, all food was "organic".


No, it won't solve the "population puzzle". I didn't realize it was a problem and needed a solution per se. Also, again, higher costs are imposed by us. Centralized recycling where materials are recycled by a central authority and sold to manufacturers could be as cheap or cheaper than new manufacture.

Sure, energy needs to be cheap. However, solar, water and wind COULD take care of the bulk of our power, especially in third world and developing nations. Better use of materials in buildings and homes, batteries to store energy throughout the night and cloudy days coupled with more energy efficient devices make for a cheaper, cleaner power economy.

I disagree. In fact, I'd say fertilize run off is a much smaller problem, and also generally affect rural areas more. There is more land mass in rural areas, and fewer people. I'd say detergents, cleansers and, of course, other chemical compounds are a larger problem, especially in urban areas.

Aditionally, developments such as this could prove useful if the government took them seriously enough to invest tax dollars into them. This is what tax dollars should go for, IMHO.

Since I haven't posted in this thread since its first real go-around, and I seem to have been referenced in this thread recently, I'll do so now.

"Making fun of noobs" and "making fun of spammers" are two completely different things. When someone comes here and posts some garbage advertisement for their cause/product/service/etc., we (the mods, and also many of our regular members) take real offense to this. Add to that the frequency of occurence that we have to deal with spammers (more than most of you could ever guess) and, yes, we sometimes are less than pleasant when dealing with the spammers. It happens. In the case of the spammer, we are not making fun of a new member, but a person who signed up just to spam the board- that is not a member, it is an asshole blighting the TFP with its crap.

As to why the thread took off to begin with, the intentions behind the first post were not immediately seen to be "spam", and many people chimed in on the topic with a good discussion before it was really discovered to simply be spam.

That's a load of bullshit.

Regardless of whether or not it's an attack, the person being attacked was not a member- it was a spammer. Big difference. To use the "Angrymom" thread example from before, one was a rookie posting something that turned out to be a real issue, not the giant flame-bait some of us thought it was, and THIS thread turned out to be spam, not an actual discussion on "not having kids, to end the world" (which it mutated into anyway, despite the original spam).

See this is what we have to balance. Sometimes it's not just "HEY COME CHECK OUT MY SITE I CAN MAKE YOUR PENIS BIGGER", sometimes things balance on a line. Both of those rookie-first-posts could have simply been some sort of useless ad or propaganda. On inspection, one was- and the other was not. It happens.

A lot of things grow in the garden that is the TFP... some are actual flowers, and some are weeds... but when they first appear, sometimes a weed can look like a flower, or vice-versa. After looking into it, we reveal the root of the issue, and either allow it to flourish- or rip it out with our bare hands, in disgust. Tell me you've never cursed a weed for its negative presence in your TFP flowerbed.

Out of curiosity, how did you eventually discover that the OP really was spam?

I still have trouble seeing your point however. If a kid in the library is making a lot of noise, the librarian doesn't insult him for being fat until he goes away--not only does it make no sense to the kid, it makes no sense to outside observers.

Tecoyah,
That was the most mature post i have seen from you. Brah-vo.

Still??? Just what kind of answer will be satisfactory to you???? You've heard the answer from the horse's mouth and you still don't like it.

As for how we know it's spam? We do lots of research and investigations behind the scenes. We're pretty good at finding out information about people that people seem to leave behind, call it computer forensics.

It seems that this thread has run it's course because now we're no longer discussing the OP but discussion how we conduct our business.

Thread closed.