If we were approaching the "holding capacity" you would expect that more of us would be on the edge of starvation. Over the last 200 years, we started to escape the Malthusian Trap. The population was significantly smaller. IN the last 40 years, even more people have escaped living on the edge of starvation. and the population has more than doubled and the number of people in starvation or at the edge of it, has declined significantly, more than 1/2 in percentage terms and even greater in absolute numbers. In a free society, each individual is a resource, not a burden. The environmentalists' position that we will run out of resources, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of resources. They are not fixed things because humans invent, which creates new resources.

I don't think the evidence backs your assertion. Fact: Africans on the edge of starvation are having lots of children. In fact, the evidence is quite strong that the closer you are to the Malthusian Trap, the more children you have. As wealth per capita increases, societies as a whole population, decline significantly, to below population replacement rates. Europeans do not have children at the replacement rate, so there was a huge concern that Muslims who moved into Europe would overtake the population. But statistics show the Muslims who move to Europe have children at reduced levels compared with their birth country. As people become wealthier, they tend to have less children. The congestion you experienced in European cities is due in part to regulations. There are laws that make it difficult to build in rural areas. In fact, large parts of the world are sparsely populated. What is the magic number in your estimation?

Stephen Covey, the author of "The 7 Habits of Effective People" is quoted among some of the quotes linked at https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=ch... as having said: "We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey." Further relating to your statement that ".....but since you no longer exist,....", you might find some interesting "food for thought" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z56u4wMx...

Thank you for posting this link. I was totally unaware of that. When I went there, I noticed that it is for Part 1 and that in the right hand column they showed a link to the 31 minute long Part 2 as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5EfbaTY... . Both parts are definitely worth the listen. Thanks again.

George Washington said "influence is no government". Ask many union members or lobbyists about influencing anyone they can get their paws on or their beliefs to be heard. They themselves are like sheep lead to slaughter also. Many spread this rhetoric because they have been brainwashed to believe it then when the day comes and their life becomes mute the next one in line starts the cycle all over again and sometimes with changes, but trying to keep on par with the last so-called elite. Influence in this way will never give up until all is lost. Michigan 4 years back became a right-to-work law state and union participation has dropped from 22% to 16%. Unemployment is still high and will continue until we fail or many people in this state realize government has always been the problem because they trample on their own Constitution along with the U.S. Constitution. I still have hope for the latter and the real change in America that she needs. If that faction opens its eyes and sees what they have created then maybe just maybe freedom will be restored. Those men who gave their lives and all they had to start this country are rolling in their graves because somewhere in the past we all had lost that spirit that made America, but the one thing that has changed is we that want that freedom back are at least trying harder and harder. Win some lose some, but I will never give up.

Thanks, KH. Voluntary is the keyword. If everyone were fully responsible for the care and upbringing of their offspring, with no welfare handouts and free public services, they would not breed with the abandon we see in some countries and subgroups. Instead of 8 or 10 children, people might choose to have only 2 or 3. I'm not talking about mandatory limits imposed by government; I mean responsible limits freely chosen by the individuals involved. It is not pro-human to outbreed the holding capacity of our life support system. We either limit ourselves rationally or purge the surplus violently.

Good points!

I'm not sure that population is the driver. Using your own example, the Pilgrims had a very restrictive socialistic society. I posted in here before exerpts from a journal where while the shared all harvests people were often sick or hurting and production was just enough to squeeze by. They then decided to give each family plots to maintain and production increased significantly with women and children helping the males in the field. Singapore is densely populated but has more economic freedom than the US. Of course it is less free in terms of societal laws. It 's human nature to knee jerk "there needs to be a law! " or "give me something for free! " We were given a republic. We didn 't keep it.

I listened to the first 2 minutes and can already tell both the youtube and the book with be worth my time. Making a DVD so I can listen in the car. Thanks to both of you for sharing. I love the wealth of information that is available in the Gulch!

Truer words have never been spoken kh!

I just bought the kindle version.

Steward of society. Laws are made for individuals not societies. How you are relating this to Rand is completely false. I would agree that no govt is a bad solution as I would agree freedom is not restricted by laws which focus on the protection of property rights. It 's the laws made for society (as if society could possibly have rights) which limit individuals ' freedoms.

Here is a 55 minute discussion of the book
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSJJY5hJ...

Excellent comments puzzlelady. You should have made it a post. Interesting perspectives on Europe. I am curious about one point. Voluntary reduction in birth rate? Sounds a little anti human to me

Population density pushes more people into less space, like squeezing a snowball or compressing air or pulling cosmic dust into a star. It heats up and forces individual particles into ever more restricted orbits.

When birds in a nest grow too big, they elbow each other out and are forced to leave, to live or die. The strongest prevail. Natural selection favors those who prevail.

Crowded societies cope by migration, exodus, finding new frontiers, and, if necessary, squeezing out any native inhabitants. They also develop mutually agreed-upon or dictatorially imposed rules of cohabitation and collaboration, a system of edicts and laws, to enable co-existence under increasing pressures. "Justice" is not necessarily an ingredient in such accommodations.

I've just returned from a 3-week tour of Europe. The pleasures were severely dented by the ordeal of being crammed, jammed, poked, rammed, crunched in queues and bunched, bumped and thumped in train stations, airports, subways, docks, even on hiking trails, not to mention the indignities of all the security checkpoints... a first-hand, close-up view of the psychology of overcrowding, the surliness of the crowds, the thinly veiled menace of the controllers.

When society gets overheated, with no place left to go, conflict breaks out. Finally some loot and burn, and eventually resort to genocide.

We need the next stage of evolution, the intellectual and philosophical one through which there can be co-existence without mutual destruction. Contracts, trade agreements, division of labor, negotiated settlements, respect for others' property, voluntary reduction in birth rates... there is no conflict of interest between rational men (and women). Reach for Reason, not for weaponry. Find a way to take unthinking emotions out of the driver's seat and predators out of the seats of power.

"Human nature" is not written in stone; it is the product of a long chain of evolutionary changes to meet the demands of survival. Let's understand and retool ourselves so that life can reach the highest freedom for each individual. The core value to this end is that no one may use another as a natural resource to be exploited, like forests or coal mines or water (alias the Golden Rule). Only by mutual consent can any one's precious time and energy become an asset for others.

There is still a natural limit to how many people can co-exist within a certain amount of space. The need for Lebensraum has always been the trigger for deadly contention. We must learn to tame the selfish genes and the tenacious memes, to assure survival and to end wars and depredations in human relationships.

"Is death the only way to rid yourself of government? "

Taking this to mean the kind of government we have now, it doesn't work. Taxes follow you there, too.

Since everyone of a society is a steward of that society, and you claim that you are "NOT" a Steward of Society, you are not an Objectivist, and your understanding of Rand is badly skewed, you are an anarchist.
Objectivists are all stewards of society their effort makes society work. It is when individuals attempt to take advantage of society, so well portrayed in Rand's works, particularly in Atlas Shrugged that the society is damaged.
Society in Atlas Shrugged is ground to a halt because of those individuals. In Shrugged Ayn predicted Barack Obama and the actions of his "Progressive" political cronies from both sides of the aisle, who are more interested in personal aggrandizement than the needs of the people or the country.

This has been another great discussion. I'd like everyone to keep in mind that this post is not about dying. I never said dying was the right thing. Simply brought it up to see if others have ever considered the subject.

Why do you want to rid yourself of the government? Don't you want to institute an agent to objectively retaliate against those that initiate force?

When you're dead you cease to exist; your chemicals remain but the life that was you is destroyed forever. Death will remove every relationship between yourself and everything else (including the gov).

Nazi Germany was a "creation of society" too but so what? It was still rankly evil and needed to be reformed or in this case overturned. Surely you do not believe that anything society creates is good?

I am NOT a "steward of society". That is the language of our oppressors and is 180 from the position of objectivists. You have the right to live your life as you wish totally for your own sake respecting the right of others to do the same. Anything less is a slave pen.

When there is no real choice to vote for and when the parties themselves are corrupt and when the rules are rigged against 3rd parties it hardly makes sense to blame the victims that had no means left them to choose except to leave, revolt, or shrug.

It is frankly your response that is badly grounded.

The reason that I posted a planning exercise for the construction of Atlantis is to give all of us here hope that we could be both free and alive.

It is unusual to hear form someone who has no hope of life after death, or even of remembrance.
Society is governance and our "grossly overinflated government" is a creation of our society. One might wonder if, from what you allege, our governance inflated itself . . . or is that a property of any governance?
For myself, I tend to believe that we, as stewards of our society did not take sufficient care when we voted, if we didn't pay sufficient attention to how those we've elected and reelected have or have not done our work.
Being a sentient being who claims an erudition does not in any way permit opinionated commentary that is groundless. If you were even relatively familiar with the philosophers' whose theses I referenced, you wouldn't have written what you did.
You will find a few years in a library to be enlightening.

Thanks.

Thanks.

With the huge number of people on the planet we would see utter chaos . Two people left in the world would be fighting about something. A certain amount of order is necessary. We now have far too much