The world population stands at 8.2 billion, and it’s continuing to grow. It is not shrinking. We are adding 70 million people each year. Some simple facts:
During the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion.
In 1970, there were roughly half as many people in the world as there are now.
Because of declining growth rates, it will now take over 200 years to double again.
Does it bother you that it’s going to take 200 years to fill up the planet with 16 billion people? The 1970s were not that overcrowded nor was it empty. I don’t think we gained that much by adding 4 billion people since then, especially since so many of the additions are being exploited and are suffering to benefit relatively rich people like me.
I wonder if some people are confused by graphs. Here’s a plot of the growth rate, not total population, and yes, the rate has gone down (which is good news), but that does not mean we’re losing population.
But this graph keeps Elon Musk awake at night, because he’s a very stupid person.
Billionaire Elon Musk told Fox News recently that falling birth rates keep him up at night. It’s a drum he’s been beating for years.
Musk is one of the world’s most visible individuals to elevate this point of view. Vice President JD Vance also talks about wanting to increase birthrates in the U.S.
I am untroubled by it. I am more concerned about whether my grandchildren have a good quality of life and opportunity to personally live and grow, and whether all the other children living in the here and now also have equal opportunities. Increasing the world’s population does not increase our happiness — we should care more about the quality of life than creating bulk quantities of consumers.
I also have to ask…why are so many of the people advocating for increased growth rates such horrible fascists? There was a meeting of these “pro-natalists” back in March, and these weren’t people who just love children and want to build hospitals and daycares and open up more educational opportunities and expand vaccination, all things I would consider virtuous evidence of a true desire to help a burgeoning population…quite the opposite. The philosophy seems to be strongly tied to Nazis.
A natalist conference featuring speakers including self-described eugenicists and promoters of race science, apparently including the man behind a previously pseudonymous race-science influencer account, and the founder of a startup offering IQ screening for IVF embryos, will be held at a hotel and conference venue operated by the public University of Texas, Austin.
Details of the conference have emerged as a prominent supporter of pro-natalist positions, the tech billionaire Elon Musk, lays waste US government agencies under the banner of his “Doge” initiative, with the blessing of Donald Trump.
Natalism in its current often rightwing iteration encourages high birth rates, and Musk has been a vocal proponent. He also maintains a large compound home near Austin, where reportedly he plans to house some of his children and two of their mothers.
composite image of people wearing maga caps with red stars on their mouths
‘The basis of eugenics’: Elon Musk and the menacing return of the R-word
Read more
The Natal conference website embeds a Musk post on X, reading: “If birth rates continue to plummet, human civilization will end.” Musk, who reportedly has at least 13 children by four mothers, was in recent days confronted on X by musician Grimes and the rightwing influencer Ashley St Clair over his alleged neglect of the children he has fathered with them.The conference, scheduled for 28-29 March, is being organized by Kevin Dolan, who the Guardian identified in 2021 as the person behind a Twitter account that was prominent in the far-right “DezNat” movement, and last year as the organizer of the first conference. It is the second time the conference has been held, and once again, the speakers roster runs from provocateurs who emerged from the “fascist fitness scene” to practitioners of “liberal eugenics”.
Uh, Elon…civilization will not end if we maintain a low, stable, sustainable growth rate. If you’re so concerned about too few people, open the doors of America to more immigration. More is better, right?
Also, eugenics is eugenics. Attaching the adjective “liberal” to it doesn’t make it beneficial, you’re still making value judgments on the worth of individuals. Whether you’re euthanizing them or hiding them away in institutions or giving special advantages to people who meet your subjective criteria, it’s all the same thing — it’s an attempt to short-sightedly dictate what kind of people will be allowed to thrive.
Here’s the organizer of that natalist conference.
KEVIN DOLAN: But the topic of demographic decline clearly matters to Elon Musk, JD Vance and many others in the Trump administration, which means that the great ideas developed here can get a hearing that would not have been possible last year.
HAGEN: Dolan left his data science job in 2021 after his anonymous Twitter account was exposed. Among other things, he’d used it to promote the racist notion that white men are superior to other races and women. After getting doxxed, Dolan continued sharing his thoughts about how society should be ordered on his podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DOLAN: We’re expected to lie about the existence of these hierarchies all of the time. And if our goal is to rehabilitate hierarchies of nature, then the best place to start is the most fundamental natural hierarchies, which are found in the family. And that brings us back to where we started, with selective breeding.
What natural hierarchies? Nature is more of an anarchist collective, without a big boss deciding who benefits from selective breeding. Nature does not follow any human ideology, so it’s fallacious to try and attach one to it, or worse claim that humans should follow your biased interpretation of how it ought to work.
LISA HAGEN, BYLINE: Simone Collins, in her thick-rimmed, round glasses, is one of the more visible faces of pronatalism – on purpose.
SIMONE COLLINS: My whole entire, like, Etsy getup right now, it’s intentionally cringe.
HAGEN: She’s here at Natal Con in her signature look, which she describes as techno-puritan.
COLLINS: There should obviously be more cybernetics in my outfit, but we are combining, like, chunky hipster glasses and a lot of modern equipment with a bonnet and linen clothing.
Some of the more prominent faces in this movement are Malcolm and Simone Collins, a pair of dorks who complain about “demographic collapse” (whatever that undefined disaster is) while saying that oh, no, they have nothing to do with those horrible people running the conferences they attend. They gave the keynote speech at the Austin natalist conference!
Image is everything to them. The Collinses are quick to verbally denounce fascists and the far right, but then you have to look at what they do: they ally themselves with people like Charles Haywood.
CHARLES HAYWOOD: And generally, women should not have careers. They should be socially stigmatized if they have careers.
HAGEN: That’s Charles Haywood at the first Natal Con a couple years ago. This year, he’s behind the scenes as a sponsor. He made his money as a shampoo magnate. Haywood blames birth rate declines on feminism and the overturning of what he sees as natural hierarchies of gender and race.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HAYWOOD: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its progeny are probably the single most destructive set of laws in American history, and all should be wiped forever for the history of this nation.
They can tell me they’re progressive and good people when they get around to denouncing that guy and all the racist/misogynist/neo-nazi scum that form their audience.
I should also mention the incident that put them in the news a while back when Malcolm Collins slapped his son Torsten in the face.
Torsten has knocked the table with his foot and caused it to teeter, to almost topple, before it rights itself. Immediately – like a reflex – Malcolm hits him in the face.
It is not a heavy blow, but it is a slap with the palm of his hand direct to his two-year-old son’s face that’s firm enough for me to hear on my voice recorder when I play it back later. And Malcolm has done it in the middle of a public place, in front of a journalist, who he knows is recording everything.
Oops, the mask slipped for a moment. It’s OK, it was never a very convincing facade that they’ve put up, anyway.
Ugh, of course eugenics historically had strong roots in liberalism by default; if this author doesn’t even know this basic fact he shouldn’t be using the word ‘eugenics.’
Seems likerly we are going out with a bang not a whimper.
That bang being a Mass Extinction event that take sone whopping huge percentage of oher species with us.
Already have done actually- ^& getting worse all the time – I’m grimly sure.
Is Elon Musk still relevant? Still powerful?
Ain’t that fucker meant to be stepping back to oversee the demise of Tesla by boycotts and personal unpopularity and his cars catching fire and .. no?
Still world’s richest man & all too malignantly influential? People still listening to him like he actually deserves a say and has things worth saying becoz of his obscene undeserved wealth? Fer fucks sake.
Eugenics? Now? We’re in 2025 not 1935 right? Right?
Sigh.
If anyone shouldn’t have children, it would Malcolm and Simone Collins.
What they and the rest of the “pro-natalists” fail to mention is that in the USA, children are expensive. It costs right now, $312, 000 to raise a middle class child from birth to age 18. You can add another $100,000 for college.
If you ask people today why they don’t have children or only have one, they almost all say it is because children are expensive and they don’t have the money.
The Collinses support their breeder hobby with his inherited trust fund.
If you are going to be a pro-natalist with a breeder hobby, do remember to acquire or inherit a huge amount of money first.
And don’t expect the US government to help you in any way.
The GOP and Trump are cutting all Federal safety net and family support programs as fast as possible.
Over the weekend I saw an anti-abortion billboard with the caption “Love all children the way Jesus loves them.”
OK. Jesus allows millions of third world children to die of malnutrition and preventable disease. He allows the children of Gaza to suffer genocide. He allows children to live with abusive parents who beat and sexually exploit them. So maybe that’s not the greatest thing to aspire to. Maybe aspiring to love them as much as the people who want them to have adequate nutrition and medical care would be a better start.
This is where the number of $312,202 comes from, to raise a child. From the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Not yet mentioned is that the Fascist GOP and Trump are busy right now wrecking the USA and turning it into some sort of hell hole dictatorship instead of a democracy. While helping the oligarchies loot the country while further impoverishing the 99% of us.
Which makes the USA right now, very unattractive for people to live in, much less have children.
I predict that the US fertility rate isn’t going to go up and is more likely to continue its downward drift.
Trump and Elon Musk have probably done as much as any two people to drive the US birth rate down.
I went out to lunch with my old friend recently.
We both agreed that if we had to do it over again today, we wouldn’t have children again. Who wants to bring a child into this world of a failing, floundering superpower?
Same thing happened when the USSR failed.
Their birth rate went down and never recovered.
“The birth rate in Russia fell sharply after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.”
#1 drsteve:
“Ugh, of course eugenics historically had strong roots in liberalism by default . . .”
I’ve reread your line a number of times, and I’m still unable to decide just what you mean by that. If you’re referring to what is called the ‘new eugenics’ then there is some truth to it. However, if you are referring to the old eugenics as practiced in the first half of the 20th century, then I have to take issue with you. There was nothing liberal about that.
“We are adding 70 million people each year”
Fun fact: when I was growing up in the late 1970s the growth was also 70 million/ year. There are far more people now, so the percentage has dropped. Bad news: the growth is very strong in Africa, a continent that is often subjected to regional drought and where the stress on the environment is great.
Also, India is far less successful than China in reducing population growth, while simultaneously having water shortages, a situation that will get drastically worse if global warming results in a weaker monsoon.
19th century eugenics was a rationalization for imperialism and colonialism, so not at all liberal (in the modern sense of the word).
What happened to cause that dip ~1958-1961?
Why are you eliding/sliding away from the root cause of the natalist movement, PZ? They’re racists. They’re panicking because they think the population of Northern European ethnics is shrinking, and assume the world will fall into barbarism without white men to guide it.
“What happened to cause that dip -1958-1961”
I’d guess (with utterly no evidence) that it’s a lag between the end of war time adults being of child bearing age and the children born just before or during the war coming to child bearing age. … Just a guess. Fits me and my sister born in 61 and 59 to our parents both born in 1940. Too late to be a “true” boomer result of a return from the war but too early to be an “X”er, the children of results of the return of the war– just the children of the babies at a time when there were few babies.
Any disagreement I might have about responses to my top post comes down to semantics over the use of the word “liberal”, which is an entire discussion in and of itself that would derail the thread. So I’d prefer to just defer to our host on that question that and leave things there 🙂
Musk and the ultra-wealthy need more people to work in the factories they envision. They want two classes of people, them and everybody else. No upper middle class, middle class or lower class, just them and what is left after they weed out the undesirables. They will only keep those who worship the wealthy and are willing to live off the crumbs provided to them. Similar to Nazi eugenics. All the rest will be declared inferior, terrorists, or whatever label they can use to rid their world of them. All that will be left are the ultra-wealthy and those who willingly work for them and are happy to do so. There will places like El Salvador scattered around the world to house the undesirables that are not killed.
They will manipulate believers (easy task) to move their plans along. Religion will be a big factor in converting their societal master plan.
Yep.
They want more white babies. That’s it. That’s the hysteria. Gee, it’s almost like being a minority means you get marginalized in some way, shape, or form… 🤔
They want white babies to trap white women in relationships Sturz white men again and they want non white babies to have cheap labour to exploit.
Regarding ““demographic collapse” (whatever that undefined disaster is)” — workforce issues, basically.
“People worldwide are living longer. Today most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond. Every country in the world is experiencing growth in both the size and the proportion of older persons in the population.
By 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over. At this time the share of the population aged 60 years and over will increase from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion. By 2050, the world’s population of people aged 60 years and older will double (2.1 billion). The number of persons aged 80 years or older is expected to triple between 2020 and 2050 to reach 426 million.
While this shift in distribution of a country’s population towards older ages – known as population ageing – started in high-income countries (for example in Japan 30% of the population is already over 60 years old), it is now low- and middle-income countries that are experiencing the greatest change. By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population over 60 years will live in low- and middle-income countries.”
(https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health)
I think I mentioned racism a few times. Heck, Jared Taylor was at the Natal conference — it was definitely a white nationalism/racism conference.
Technically true, since if X continues to Y, Z will end – for any X, Y, and Z.
However also, no X will ever continue to Y, into infinity, so it doesn’t really matter.
If someone was genuinely interested in breeding humanity for being ‘better’ they would advocate for universal access to excellent medical care, plenty of nutritious food, excellent education, plenty of opportunities to improve your situation through creativity and hard work, lots and lots of being free to make choices, and having a legal system that is trusted by all of the participants. Those conditions would allow ‘the best of us’ every opportunity to do well, without regard to preconceptions about what is possible or – aside from the next sentence – what ‘best’ is. It would also be a situation where being a nice, considerate, respectful, and open-minded, person was more efficient for ‘getting ahead’ than being a jerk.
Pierce R Butler @ 10
Assuming the graph is the whole world and not just the US I’m going to say the Great Leap Forward in China. 10-50 million extra dead over 3 years will do that to growth rates
@20. I’ve observed eugenicists seem to believe in the opposite approach: Using disabilities as an excuse to preemptively give up on kids and use their resulting abuse and neglect as evidence of the inferiority of the kid instead of their personal failings as human beings.
One idea I’ve been pondering for the past week is this: Bigots and eugenicists are freeloaders on the social contract. They want all the benefits of a free society, but they don’t want to put in any work (and actively work against) maintaining the social, educational, and legal infrastructure that makes society possible. Do they even believe the crap they spout, or is it a rationalization for their parasitism? Never mind, don’t bother answering. I don’t really care about their motive, just that they be removed from society or at least neutralized until they can learn to be civilized.
The dorks are also nominative determinists, or whatever it’s called. Their kids all have names like Victorious Auspicious. (No I’m not going to look it up.)
The NYT reported that a bunch of women speakers at that pronatalist meeting had to cancel because they all got stuck at home with the children. The speakers were almost all male.
Let’s not forget that this is also all about keeping women subjugated.
So many evils tangled up in one movement, alright.
I was under the impression that early 20th century eugenics was very much an interest of progressives and socialists. WEB DuBois himself may have flirted with eugenics a bit. Talented tenth?
When searching through Crisis to follow up on some stuff I read in Unnatural Selections by Daylanne English I happened upon this interesting article:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uga1.32108046351857&seq=185&q1=Beckham&start=1
Or: Beckham, A. S. (1924). Applied eugenics. Crisis, 28(1), 177–178.
https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/albert-sidney-beckham
woozy #12
“Too late to be a “true” boomer result of a return from the war”
My sisters and I are in the same demo. Our father was also too young to have served in WWII, but I think there was a mood over at least the USA and probably much of the world that some reproducin’ was needed. Our father and a couple of his buddies were in the Army and all three were introduced to our mother by an older lady with some gene-swappin’ as an unspoken but not unsuspected goal.
My own view is in agreement with Isaac Asimov that it would be ideal to reduce human population to about 1 billion, and probably to encourage those people to cluster into reasonably sized and reasonably dense cities. Try to leave as much land as possible untouched by humans and let the rest of the world’s species have some room to breathe.
Someone named E Franklin Frazier would rebut Beckham in the December 1925 issue of The Crisis (Vol 31, No. 2, pages 91-92):
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000054421510&seq=99&q1=Eugenic
Frazier was more focused on environmental considerations than heredity, but he did say:
Frazier closes with:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Franklin_Frazier
Eugenics the term and the veneer of scientific respectability was created by Francis Galton in 1883. In his time he would likely have been described as a liberal despite being openly and vehemently racist and sexist and invented genocidal plans for Africa. The word had a very different meaning then. Even redbaiter Joe McCarthy used the word “liberal” to indicate admirable values. By the early C20, though, eugenics was embraced by both liberals (e.g. in Oliver Wendell Holmes’s most infamous judgement) and avowed anti-liberals (the Nazi Party), which makes its cultural roots rather moot. And by the late C20, the word “liberal” had shifted meaning, largely due to a long-haul strategy by American right-wing media to demonise the word.
As PZ points out, it isn’t really helpful to bandy words about as if their meaning has been static since the late C19. In our time, it is the liberal position to oppose eugenics and the anti-liberal position to promote it.
moarscienceplz@28 — probably the model state for this is Japan: highly industrialised, huge cities, 70% land area still natural forest. Even Tokyo is about 30% forest.
#22 “I’ve observed eugenicists seem to believe in the opposite approach: Using disabilities as an excuse to preemptively give up on kids and use their resulting abuse and neglect as evidence of the inferiority of the kid instead of their personal failings as human beings.”
Indeed. Setting aside the utter moral depravity of their actions, where they go wrong is that they forget that most of the time the most important selective pressure is at the group level – those humans who play well with others tend to experience reproductive success…and more importantly, the group experiences more success when more of its members are good at getting along, sharing information, etc. Instead the ‘eugenicist wannabees’ focus on individuals and double-down on the broken parts of society in order to justify and enable their obsessive focus on who the best individuals are. [I would love to see what humans become when we’ve had tens of thousands of years with everyone well fed, cared for, valued, respected, lots of free choice, and so on.]
Oh and:
https://fabians.org.uk/about-us/our-history/
This guy:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Bertrand_Russell#Eugenics
profpedant @ 20
I totally agree, but I think most of the people that the original post refers to probably believe that a person’s success is almost entirely determined by genetics, rather than environment. Because of this, they would probably regard all the changes that you mention as a waste of time and effort. The only important thing is for people with “good genes” to have lots of children. The racism behind the notion of “good genes” is poorly hidden.
springa73 at 34:
Yuppity-yup-yup-yup! They fail to understand that humans are social creatures and this means that no matter how freaking wonderful your genes are you still need to be able to cooperate with others and are often dependent on others. Even swallowing their inaccuracies about “good genes guarantee success!” in one gulp you still have to attend to the quality of the society the super-children are being raised in. Crappy society, crappy super-children who mostly fail to fully live up to their “gene-enabled potential”.
(I don’t know of any research supporting this idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me if societies that assume a general equality of its people have more people who are “clearly very successful/beneficial to society” than a society that is really devoted to maintaining a social hierarchy does.)
@8 . birgerjohansson :
As a kid I read Paul & Anne Ehrlich’s Population Bomb book :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb
For a while I did buy its premises and thought it was going to be a problem – and in some respects it is but I now think that issue is over-exaggerated and raised too often by racists. It seems there real issue is the inequality of resources and the extreme wealth vs extreme poverty. Also that feminsim and empowering women as well as rasing people’s standard of living is the solution here. Relatively wealthy families living inplaces with good healthcare systems do not need to have large families since they don’t need to have a lot of children in order to have some kids survive to look after them in old age isn’t a thing.
Malthus isn’t a factor when enough people have enough power over their own lives and comfort & security to choose wisely and when enough people look after enough people well enough.
There was also a really good doco on this issue I saw ages ago debunking the whole population crisis thing which I’ll have to see if I can find and remember. On youtube somewhere I think..
Plus extreme deadly heatwaves which are likely to become more severe and more frequent. Predictions ar e some tropicla regions of our globe could becoem uninhabitable including India. temperatures insome parts of Southwest Asia ar ealready pushingthe limits of what humans -and animals and plants – can endure.
Or to put to work.
That was the main reason for lots of kids at least in the west back in the day – more workers putting food on the table.
Well said Stevo.
StevoR @ # 36Malthus isn’t a factor …
So long as you have enough industrial infrastructure and accessible resources to fertilize, water, and tend crops and herds in staggering quantities. The “Green Revolution” depends on heavy fossil fuel use; the “Gene” revolution has yet to fulfill those fulsome promises; the Rock and the Hard Place stand firm.
The dire Reverend might indeed return, probably at the most inconvenient moment.
Pierce:
Malthus was a person of his time; he had no understanding that women could have the wherewithal to avoid being perpetual baby machines limited only by food availability. Time has proven him wrong on that.
@ ^ John Morales : Yes – so far. Human ingenuinity and technology has so far kept Malthusian population crash predictions at bay. Ditto the Green Revolution -although not without some nasty consequences in other ways eg pollution, biodiveristy loss.
@ 38. Pierce R. Butler : Hopefully not although I fear it is possible especially with Global Overheating taking its toll and the loss of arable land.
@37. Silentbob : Thanks.
@36 . “There was also a really good doco on this issue I saw ages ago debunking the whole population crisis thing which I’ll have to see if I can find and remember. On youtube somewhere I think..”
Yes! Found it! Hans Rosling – Don’t Panic! – — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population an hour long but very much worth watching & one I’d strongly recommend on this topic.
“Yes – so far. Human ingenuinity and technology has so far kept Malthusian population crash predictions at bay.”
You’ve entirely missed the point I was making.
Humans are not bacteria on a petri dish, not unthinking animals.
Women need not be breeders, nor is population growth limited by foodstuff.
Point was his premises were of his time, as he understood things.
His argument, boiled down to what works, is that endless growth is impossible on a finite planet — fine, that’s timeless.
The actual argument however, is of its time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism#History
—
BTW, I really enjoyed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godwhale
the often unspoken point, one that is often just behind the scenes, is plain old fashioned racism. They are concerned about the diminishing numbers of pasty-faced individuals. They seem ignorant of the fact that skin color means little, and that in the fullness of time, humanity seems bound toward a sort of “cafe au lait” skin tone. As for myself, I say “so what?” I do not care what future humans look like, because it simply does not matter. Besides, I won’t be here to see it. Finally, I think all skin tones are acceptable. Yes, even pasty-faced people like me. Elongated Muskrat needs to grow the hell up.
@9 PZ
Four words: Rules-based international order.
The obvious counterexample: Libertarians and neoliberals both use their essentially liberal worldview to rationalize imperialism and colonialism. It’s a larger category than it seems at first glance to the American Democrat, with plenty of room for every conceivable combination of “We’re bringing freedom to you people”, or “Government can’t tell me to do X”, or “Government can’t tell me how to run my operation”, or “You had the freedom not to sign away your rights and you choose poorly, of your own free will”.
More xtian terrorist breeders, UGGHHH! George Orwell and Aldous Huxley would be laughing their asses off if they were alive to find that their books are now NON-fiction!
I’m restarting the Martha and the Vandellas fan club.
The Collinses look like output from one of the Flux-based AI models. Life imitating art imitating life.
Since children born today will almost certainly experience a higher numher of disasters and more political violence, is having children a moral decision?
Around the world, having children is increasingly no longer the default life choice as education is becoming universally available.
If Musk et al are afraid of non-white people they should simply work to assist literacy and education worldwide.
But that is too much like ’empathy’ or ‘altruism’ so it won’t happen.
John Morales @ # 39: … he had no understanding that women could have the wherewithal to avoid being perpetual baby machines…
No, Malthus did understand, but he disapproved, and referred very briefly to the alternative to his scenario as “vice”.
@43. the Trump voter and enabler beholder : Four words: Rules-based international order.
Firstly, that’s three words with one of them being a hyphenated word.
More importantly, secondly, you don’t believe in international law? In rules governing how nations behave?
Thirdly and finally is that why you love Trump so much and hate the Democratic party – because they actually believe in international law whereas you like Trump do not and think some nations shouldn’t be bound by international law and order?
@ StevoR
I missed that. That can you quote where beholder said they voted for Trump. (Or alternatively, apologize for lying.)
@ StevoR
Because as recently as a day or two ago you wrote:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/05/03/mix-harvard-and-the-ny-times-to-get-perfect-mush/#comment-2263853
“de facto”. As in, didn’t vote Trump. Are you claiming to have new evidence, or are you lying?
If lying, will you do the decent thing and apologize?
@ ^ Silentbob
@ StevoR Because as recently as a day or two ago you wrote:
beholder : Your advice and work attacking Kamala Harris and de facto voting for Trump
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/05/03/mix-harvard-and-the-ny-times-to-get-perfect-mush/#comment-2263853
“de facto”. As in,
didn’tDID vote Trump. Are you claiming to have new evidence, or are you lying?Fixed it for you.
Certainly NOT lying as you should know by now because I’ve stated it in plain simple factual; terrms often enough here..
There were two choices – Kamala or Trump.
Beholder has written on the record in amuch older thread that they did NOT vote for Kamala.
Therefore in the binary system the USA has they de facto,/i> voted for Trump.
Beholder also regularly attacked Kamala harris and the democratic party pre-election arguing aginst them rather than doing the right and only ethical thing of unifying behind and supporting them to STOP Trump. Because there were – say it with me now- TWO AND ONLY TWO OPTIONS!!!!
Yes, the USA has an extremely awful, shitty two party political system that utterly stinks. Yes that shouild change. But last year that was the genuine binary set of options.
Asked you before and like many questions you have just ignored it but what part of this reality don’t you get, Silentbob?
Also asked you other questions and eviscerated your responses to mine on this which you’ve ignored and one more question I’ll add tothe many youkeep ignoring – why are you defending beholder & the Putridity Disunity mob of fools that helpied fosit Trumpas tyrant onthe rest of the world?
Dangnabbit! Did have blockquotes there.. could swear I did.
Start meant to look like this :
Fixed it for you.
Neither of course. I am telling the truth and beholder has already condemned themselves in their own words here repeatedly.
@48 StevoR
I’m glad you asked. I should have introduced the term. Yes, I believe in international law put in place by, among other institutions, the U.N. General Assembly.
But notice how the neoliberals who say “Rules-based international order” aren’t saying “international law”. They aren’t the same thing. It’s a dogwhistle that apparently sails over the head of StevoR, but is heard loud and clear by U.S.-aligned pariah regimes and U.S. adversaries. The rules-based order is Washington’s order, Washington’s rules. It is meant to be applied specifically where the rules we make up violate international law (e.g. Israel encouraged to genocide an occupied population with U.S. support). In other words, the term “rules-based international order” is a rationalization for U.S. imperialism and colonialism.
@51, 52
Oh, and I didn’t vote for Trump, StevoR. Those lies are getting old even by the standards of your habit of dreary, obsessive, copy-pasted repetition.
See my reply here too :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/05/03/mix-harvard-and-the-ny-times-to-get-perfect-mush/comment-page-1/#comment-2264154
You sure did not vote for Harris.
Thus, the net result of your vote is one vote more for Trump than for Harris than would otherwise have been the case, when the votes are tallied. It was all discussed most thoroughly during the campaign, and clearly the outcome goes to whoever has more votes than the other. You could have cost Trump one vote, had you cared to do so. Now… well, look at Gaza now.
<snicker>
Lies by equivocation are still lies.
@53. beholder : yes de facto – in fact – you DID vote for Trump.
Unless you were lying before when you said you didn’t vote for Kamala Harris?
You had two choices for POTUS beholder. Only two real actual choices.
So. Did you vote for Kamala Harris or not?
if not then de facto – in fact as I’ve factually stated and explained many times in the face of your denialism and refusal to acept reality you DID vote for Trump maybe indirectly but still effectively.
What part of this do you think is incorrect and why?
Yeah can we stop relitigating the US election on near every other thread as to how certain posters are responsible for the outcome. This tiring bullcrap changes nothing as to the current situation. And it gets tedious to read. It’s almost as if a new law is emerging that the longer a Pharyngula thread goes the inevitability Poster A or Poster B gets blamed for Trump and explodes the reply count.
Fess up, StevoR. Your pants are on fire.
Say it with me now:
When the Collins couple was first mentioned here a couple years ago, I wrote a little ironic spec-fic thingy for their .
I might have to update it, given more from the couple about their parenting methods.
(emph mine — holy naturalistic fallacy, Batman!)
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2024/05/pa-state-house-candidate-goes-viral-after-news-report-says-husband-slapped-2-year-old-son.html
Note that most of the linked article (written 2024-05) is about Simone Collins wanting to start her political career, running for the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in 2024-11 . Results:
For whatever that’s worth.