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Entry: Saying "No" to Tenured Fascists Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/saying_no_to_tenured_fascists#18103 Post contents: John, For a fully scientific discussion of the decline in violent mortality, see Azar Gat, "War in Human Civilization" (OUP 2006). In my view, Gat overemphasizes biology and underestimates the influence of culture, but his work is a good summary of the current state of the art on the subject. Your observation " . . . do NOT endorse the opinion that it is legitimate to destroy the ecosystem created by God simply in order to maximize human population at a given moment . . . " has very troubling implications. After all, this assertion implies you consider it acceptable to reduce the size of human populations to save the ecosystem -- just like the Green leaders appear to have done about Africa. Please, do read about the Nazi's "General Plan East." Using the science of 1930s, the Nazis had concluded that Eastern Europe's population was about 40-50 million too large. As a result, they were plannig to reduce the population by that number. Extermination camps could not kill that many, so the plan was to create an articial famine that would have brought the population down to "scientifically correct" level. (I.e., the Holocaust was only a stepping stone to a much bigger project.) You wondered why states turned their organization to killing humans. A look at the cases strongly suggests one of the main reasons was that people followed what they at the time honestly believed to be eminently scientific central planning -- i.e., precisely the same attitude you yourself manifest in your ecological thinking. Considering the historical effects of this approach, you might want to give serious thought to just following some of the key commands of Christianity, even when these commands require behavior that contradicts current "scientific" advice. One command in particular was ignored by both the Nazis and the Communists, because it did not fit their "scientific" theories on how to build a better society: "Thou Shalt Not Kill" Period. Sent at: 2008 08 08