There is a major flaw in this theory.

This theory appears to assume that the reason for increased food production is to feed the hungry.  When in fact, this is simply not the case.  Man is, by nature, greedy, and the sole purpose of increased food production is increased income.  Those who produce the food don't care who it goes to, as long as it goes to someone, and it just so happens that starving third world countries are more than willing to take it off their hands.

Also, population increase is not a direct reaction to food increase.  That would be like saying that population increase is a direct reaction to homicide decrease.  Population increase will happen regardless.  All people have a natural desire to reproduce.  How much food is available does not change this fact.  Decreasing food production counteracts population increase by starving people to death.  So while population increase continues, death by starvation increases as well, reducing the numbers.

Mathematically, sure, decreasing food will ultimately result in decreased population.  But the end never justifies the means.  We have no right to decide that all the starving and destitute need to die so that the comfortable can continue to live comfortably.

Though still, there is no reason to worry.  I stated before, man, by nature, is greedy.  As long as a profit is to be made, the food will keep coming.  We'll have to find another solution to overpopulation.  Might I suggest oceanic or extraplanetary colonization?

And if we're not supposed to eat meat.  Why does it taste so damn GOOD!?

I just got that feeling from reading some of the replies, for example Bondo's reply about throwing away tools and devices, but perhaps I wasn't being accurate enough about this. Anyway, the point is that this book is NOT about running off into the wild.

I can understand why you would get the feeling, but the fact is the thread wasn't created to talk about the book specifically, but rather to discuss one (apparent) idea in the book. A lot of us have only been given whatever small amount of information about the book, but I don't think anyone said, "THIS IS WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT. DOK SAID THIS IS IN THE BOOK THEREFORE IT IS THE ENTIRE BOOK."

Yaknow?

EDIT: I'd also just like to thrown this out there that the world population growth is actually SLOWING DOWN. I have absolutely no idea why, but yeah-- I looked at some graphs for awhile before I was distracted by something shiny.

EDIT2: This post is now Bondo approved.

I think I may bold random words from now on.  It could be my calling card.

Or not.

This way of thinking is like trying to find random points and joining them up. There are many, MANY reasons for povert and hunger, to say it's because of food production is pretty absurd, and shows absolutely no knowledge of how appaling life was. There's a very big reason why people progress and have reached where we've reached.

This entire thing is dumb because only idiots remove stuff before thinking of other solutions.

What do you accomplish by doing this? We'll just wind up where we are now cause you know someone's going to write down all this shit we have and people will rebuild society.

Why not advance towards something more healthy that won't kill 50% of the world's population (our future talented minds...) such as expansion into underpopulated places, extra planetary colonization, etc?

Animals take what they need and leave the rest for others, animals don’t store food for long periods of time, animals don’t grow there own food, animals don’t kill for pleasure

Dolphins only take what they need and then kill other animals babies and play with them (hint: for pleasure).

Squirrels do tend to store food like crazy.

The only one I can't really say anything about there is that animals don't grow their own food, but fuck, if they knew how they sure as hell would.

The only one I can't really say anything about there is that animals don't grow their own food, but fuck, if they knew how they sure as hell would.

Ants farm aphids.

Ants farm aphids.

Dang, I've never heard of this before.  That is fucking awesome.

[size]too bad there won't be a sim ant 2008 that would be a good feature[/size]

If I was a primitivist I'm pretty sure I'd be the first one to die so no thanks

Although I do think the only way we're going to solve all our problems is if we just produce so much stuff nobody can be an asshat anymore - I mean really the only reason oil is a problem is because there's only x amount of this thing - but at least it's just that nowadays and I may be a little ignorant but I'm pretty sure we haven't fought a war for ARABLE LAND for a while now

Edit: Also it'd be like 10000 BC and that movie sucked

I actually think about this pretty often.  Our civilized society is weakening our gene pool.  Human beings are no longer subject to natural selection, and any person capable of surviving through puberty can reproduce.  It doesn't really matter at the moment, since civilization makes our lives nice and easy, but I think our species will be more refined with the next great disaster (World War 3?).  Maybe we won't have to brush our teeth after all that. 

well, despite this being an absolutely horrible post and you obviously having no clue how ns/evolution works

humans haven't been subject to natural selection since the very beginnings of civilization. we're social, we change through social selection. we're selected for and against by an entirely different set of rules. and unlike natural selection, mating isn't random. humans get to choose their mate, and to help with this we've even got this awesome little inborn indicator we call love. I can understand the fantasy though; people who are nutjobs, unintelligent, unattractive, etc are socially selected against in society. after WWIII, who will be left to socially compete with? just imagine if you were the only male left on the planet! sheeww

I sort of understand the whole "we should get simpler lives" thing. I think youre misunderstanding what the book says.

Its like with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "lettres morales". Its easy to misunderstand his point in the texts, and think that he says we should BAN ENTERTAINMENT AND ANY OTHER FORM OF PLEASURE BECAUSE IT IS SLOWLY KILLING HUMANITY. While actually, what he means is entirely different.
Rousseau said that we use entertainment in our lives to fill in voids left by our bad memories, to avoid them, forget them, and that we should from time to time stop trying to fill these voids and instead make peace with our past by straightening these memories out, taking them head on. Some sort of meditation philosophy I guess? Except meditation is about thinking of nothing, while Rousseau's "meditation" is more like judging yourself, deciding whether or not things you've done in the past were right, reflect on your decisions. (its not the only thing he talks about in them but yeah)

Likewise I think you sort of took the book to the first degree when it really wasn't meant to be. Sorting out food distribution problems by producing less food and letting people starve to death is silly.

yeah wikipedia gave me a Rousseau vibe, not this weird primitivist stuff. then again you could argue that it's the logical extension but I don't lol (propertttyyyy)

well, despite this being an absolutely horrible post and you obviously having no clue how ns/evolution works

humans haven't been subject to natural selection since the very beginnings of civilization. we're social, we change through social selection. we're selected for and against by an entirely different set of rules. and unlike natural selection, mating isn't random. humans get to choose their mate, and to help with this we've even got this awesome little inborn indicator we call love. I can understand the fantasy though; people who are nutjobs, unintelligent, unattractive, etc are socially selected against in society. after WWIII, who will be left to socially compete with? just imagine if you were the only male left on the planet! sheeww

yeah seriously. why would you (meaning Evangel) seriously believe this? do you think people evolved lungs to compete with coal blackening back in the Industrial Revolution or something?

I never thought people would take the plot of Idiocracy seriously!

Even if you accept the radically inaccurate 'our gene pool is weakening' argument, our technical achievements dramatically overscore our biological failings. Besides, our technology is almost part of our species by extension - humans evolved to use tools, if anything we are reaching our extreme biological potential by utilizing effective tools!

I'd like you to show me a spider capable of walking on the moon

spidermoon, spidermoon
does whatever a spider should
spins a web, on the dark side
catches thieves just like moon flies
look up! here comes the spidermooooon.

A spider on the moon would just float away probably.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

Doktormartini does this give you a boner?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

Doktormartini does this give you a boner?

that theory is wrong.  everyone knows the earth is only 5,000 years old