Causes of Random Acts of Violence

If you think random acts of violence are more common now than in the past you are correct. 

Violence has often been a part of the human society, wars over territory and such have been a concern for thousands of years, but actual random acts of violence are a relatively new thing.

In studies done on rats and mice, John B. Calhoun noted that as the populations grew so too did the occurrence of random acts of violence.  He provided the animals with ample food and water, so he could eliminate "need" from the cause of violent outbreaks.  What he noted was that as populations grew the compassion the animals had for one and other shrunk.  They no longer acted the same towards one and other, even simple parenting skills declined.

The rats, or mice, were in near constant contact with each other and this caused them to devalue others of their kind more and more over time, leading to the increase in random acts of violence.

Humans have doubled their population in the last 40 years.  This has caused a huge strain on us socially as more and more people feel like life is a rat race and is less enjoyable overall.  More people than ever are living in cities, constantly rubbing shoulders with others.  In turn people feel lost and alone, and their subconscious cannot take the loss of identity.  People are, in general, less compassionate to strangers, and in some cases even resent them. 

In the past when people lived rurally or in smaller communities (and in areas where these smaller communities still exist) people still greet each other with a "hello" and they still make eye-contact, even with people they do not know.  In big cities people mentally distance themselves from others, they do not say "hi" to people they walk by on the street and avoid eye-contact.

We have already reached a point where random acts of violence are occurring, and are at a place where they seem to be quite common. 

As parents we must raise our children to be compassionate to others, but equally so if we have lots of children we need to take responsibility for the fact that we are just adding more of a burden to the problem.

More people = more stress.

Can Families Raise Children Without Depending on Daycare

One symptom of overpopulation is parents giving up their role as parents.  In studies on rats and mice, as the populations grew the parent animals were less involved with raising their young.  It seems to me that the human population is showing the same symptom in that many parents are getting strangers to raise their kids rather than raising their kids themselves.

The excuse so often given is that they "need to both work" so they need to have daycare.

I had only one child and before she was born both my husband and I agreed we were not going to place her in daycare.  Please note that we were not rich, in fact we were considered lower class citizens, living on minimum wage.  Rather than dumping our daughter in daycare we simply altered our schedules so that while he worked full time and I worked part time, I worked on days and times when he was home, and visa versa. 

We were very frugal with our money.  We did not have cell phones, internet, or cable television.  We had one car that we shared, it cost us very little to buy and we were not making payments on it.  We never went out for coffee but we often went for lovely walks to the park. 

We put our child as a priority rather than having "stuff". 

When I hear people say that they cannot afford for one person to stay at home and watch their children I seriously wonder what they are thinking, because if we did it on a really low income, anyone with a better income should be able to do it too. 

Otherwise I have to wonder why even have a child if you are not willing to raise it yourself, particularly as children's most formative years are 0 to 5.

If a person cannot stay home to raise one child, then why do they have more?  Surely this raises their day care expenses and further cuts into their income.

Universe 25, a study on mice which showed that as populations grew the parent mice cared less and less for their own offspring with each new generation.

I realize that most people are not logical thinkers.  They want kids, they want a big house, they want new cars, and they are not willing to make any sacrifices.  They make excuses for why they put their kid(s) in day care, they say they could not afford to stay home, but in all reality they just did not make the right choices so they could stay home.  They wanted too much stuff instead!

Again, as a low income person, if my husband and I could figure out a way for one of us to always stay home, for sure a couple making a higher income should be able to figure it out too.

Over all though, parents would be wise to remember that one kid is expensive, more will not be cheaper.

The world is not at a loss for population, we need to control our numbers, there is no need for people who produce more and more kids that they are unwilling to look after and will put in the trust of strangers.   Is this the result of human overpopulation? Or the result of human greed?  

Shocking Photos that Prove Human Overpopulation

These are photographs that I have taken in the area around me.  The prove that there is a concern with human overpopulation, but if you do not understand the connection I will explain it below.

What do you see when you look at these photos?  Do you see farm land?  I would assume you do, but are you aware that only a few years ago this farm land was forest?  I was able to see some older aerial photos of the area which showed a lot more trees and a lot less open farm land. 

If the planet was not overpopulated the forests would be preserved, thriving, and being the lungs of the planet and the home of wildlife.  Instead we rape the forests for wood or chop them up and burn them to make room for agriculture to grow food for people or food for livestock.

The trees in the distance of both of these photos are not forests, rather they are rows of trees about 30 feet wide, not much more; a poor replacement for all the trees that used to cover the land.

Now I know there are some people who do not see this as an indication of human overpopulation but I ask "When does it stop?"  At what point do we say "Ya, enough trees have been chopped, it cannot all be farm land, we need forests?"  To me the fact that we are not sustainable and are still cutting trees to make more farm land is proof that we are overpopulating the planet.

I only had one child, that was plenty for me.  I live rurally and am allowing trees to reclaim part of the area in front of my house which was once known as a "lawn".  We need to stop the destruction of our environment and the only way to do that is to slow our population growth. 

I am Tired of the Ignorant who Deny that Overpopulation is a Problem

I read a news article on concerns of the growing human population and the problems of the human impact on the planet, mostly as related to the fact that we are at risk of overpopulating ourselves to extinction.

One person commented "Humans are too small of a species to cause any real impact to the planet", or something to that effect. I wonder how anyone can be so ignorant.

Anyone my age (I am nearly 50) has seen the world's population more than double and should be aware of the problems that have developed as a result (including urban sprawl).

Anyone who thinks humans do not impact things has never heard of the dodo bird, passenger pigeon, quagga, Tasmanian tiger, and so forth.

We know that cats are overpopulated.. humans are too.

Anyone who thinks humans cannot cause change has never been in a plane flying over a clear cut area, never seen an open pit mine, and has probably not heard of what we did to the Aral Sea.

It just boggles my mind how anyone can think humans are not damaging the earth.  These people are either ignorant or in denial, I assume they put their heads in the sand so they can justify living their life of excess, greed, and waste.

I think people just find it easier to deny these things than to admit that humans are not living in harmony with nature, we are not being sustainable. People do not want to change their ways so they simply deny that we are hurting the planet.

This article was originally published by me on Bubblews.

Preachers Need to Wage War on Gluttony

Today is Sunday, preachers are inevitably preaching about one thing or another, usually about unimportant stuff such as the ills of what might be going on in some people's bedrooms, but have you noticed they rarely preach against the sin of gluttony?  They are cowards who do not want to piss off some members of their congregation.

I do not care if I piss people off, I want to save the world; gluttony is a sin against nature.  People who are gluttons are consuming more food than they need, more than their share, and taking from the planet more than they should. 

Gluttony usually refers to the over consumption of food and drink.  It has also been defined as eating delicacies rather than plain and simple foods. Pope Gregory I even said that the addition of sauces or spices to improve the taste of food amounted to gluttony.

Back then I bet nobody thought how far gluttony would go, I bet they had no idea the gluttonous foods we would have to day, nor the idea of an "all you can eat" restaurant where people do literally eat all they can.  I bet nobody imagined a time when we would have food eating contests!

One of the most common forms of gluttony is people eating portion sizes that are larger than their needs.  The appropriate portion size of meat is 4 oz, about the size of a deck of cards, but very few people stick to that. Meat is very bad for the environment for many reasons, one of which is the deforestation that occurs to clear land for cattle and to grow more crops specifically to feed cattle.  The manure waste is also bad for the environment too, as well as the methane released in farts and burps.

Coffee is also consumed in gluttonous amounts, so much so that some people are now addicted to caffeine.  Coffee is bad for the environment for many reasons, mostly the deforestation of the rain forest to grow coffee, but also because of the waste generated by restaurants who serve coffee, particularly take out coffee.

Things such as candy, pop, and potato chips, are non essentials to life, and are often consumed in gluttonous amounts, contributing not only to obesity, but to environmental problems in general, mostly related to the processing of these items and the garbage created.

We are not "overfishing" we are "over eating fish" and we need to stop before we eliminate so many fish that their species cannot recover.



If a waitress in a bar has the right to say to a drunk person "You have had enough" why cant a fast food worker say "Sorry, you do not need the super sized portion" or the restaurant worker say "Nope, you do not need dessert"?

Is the gluttonous person only hurting themselves?  No, their over consumption of food is hurting the planet, it hurts us all.  It hurts the future for our children, and theirs. 

Glutton is a hard sin to overcome, and I wish more preachers had the balls to preach about it and people were more concerned about this and stopped freaking out so much about what others do in the privacy of their bedrooms.

Greed Has No Place in an Overpopulated World

I wrote a post earlier about why some preachers do not preach against greed and wealth even though these things are against most religions.  In this article I am going to explain some of the reasons why greed is bad particularly as the world becomes more and more populated.

I will first note that most people who are greedy never see themselves that way, they say they earned it, or are entitled to it, they never realize the full picture.  They live in big houses, throw lavish parties, and often live a life of excess, simply because they think they have earned it.

In a perfect world everyone would live and be happy with less and by doing so we would preserve our environment and live more sustainable lives.

One of the reasons that greed is so bad is because when people are greedy they consume more resources.  Not all resources are renewable and as they are used up it creates problems for the future.  The earth has a carrying capacity which is based on its resources, currently some people are using far more than there share of resources, while others make do with less.  Those that take more are the ones who are destroying the planet the most.

Greedy people do not only take more resources from the earth but they also keep others in poverty.  One person cannot have more unless others have less.  When one person demands a higher wage they cause a ripple effect, increasing prices or creating hardship for others.  Let us say that person is a CEO of a big company, typically they demand a big wage and one of the ways to make sure they get more money is to pay others less, or to reduce the amount of hours others work, and then to make them work harder. The CEO feels they are more valuable.  Sure you might say "those lower paid workers can always quit" but then somebody else will just be hired in their place.  The whole point being the lower paid workers are the heroes, the greedy higher paid bosses are the greedy villains.

To most these are modest homes, but to some they would look like mansions.

Imagine a pie, if one person takes a big piece, it leaves less for others, and eventually the pie is gone.  Greed is not fair, it is ignorance and selfishness.  People think they are "entitled" to more pie because they earned it, and they qualify themselves by saying "Life is not fair" but really it is them being not fair, and just trying to find excuses for their greed.

So many people will deny that they are greedy, they will live in million dollar homes and insist that they worked hard for their money and as such they are not greedy, but what they will always fail to realize is that they have taken more than there share of the earth's resources.  Greed is not always about money. 

Is There a Conspiracy to Depopulate the Earth?

As humans, we control the population of many species on the planet, except our own. However there are people that suggest there are conspiracy theories in regards to depopulating the planet to a certain extent, in other words, killing off some people.

If you grew up in the 1970's you may remember a show called "Logan's Run" in this show human population was being controlled with a lottery type of system that involved killing off people who reached a certain age. Other shows and movies have suggested a similar fate in the future if we do not control the growth of our population now. What is fascinating is that when Logan's Run first came out human population was roughly 4 billion, and is now over 7 billion, and growing. We have done very little to prevent a future of problems.

Stop breeding like rabbits!  ©

Some depopulation ideas are, as mentioned, simply killing off people who are older, other ideas are more random, such as introducing a virus to kill off some people, and it has been suggested that the HIV/AIDS virus was designed just for that purpose.

Of course, I am not suggesting we do kill off masses of people, I am only pointing out that there are some people who are suggesting this, or are suggesting that governments of the world are considering doing this (many conspiracy theories about New World Order include reducing the population to 5 billion). Even the United Nations has said that human over population is a real concern. Many population experts suggest 5 billion is sustainable (we know 7 billion is not because we are consuming renewable resources faster than they can be renewed, this is only balanced by the fact that people in undeveloped nations are living well below what those in developed nations are consuming). The infamous Georgia Guide Stones and some others, suggest that 500,000,000 is sustainable, and not any more.

I personally have been concerned with human over population, probably since watching Logan's Run, and only had one child (when I was 30), partially because I do not want to reach a point where these scenarios become real. I do not want to be killed later in life just to make room for more people.

Anyone who thinks these conspiracy theories might be real should make sure they are not part of a contributing force; either not have kids, have kids later in life, and/or limit themselves to one child only. Yes, one child is growth, until you (or your partner) dies, you have added one person to the planet, there are now 3 rather than 2.