Would it be justified to kill pro-euthanasia proponents and plead self defence? Personally, being concerned with the ecological impact of a rising population makes me somewhat supportive of depopulation, though I'm yet to find a method I'm morally comfortable with. My perception of humanity being largely ignorant and/or narcissistic helps dampen my ethical resolve though. Question becomes, who deserves to die? And who decides? Chances are the issue will take care of itself eventually via the outcome of chose lifestyle factors. The poor health of those that make bad choices should not be publicly funded, remove it and it may cause people to revise their actions to survive. If they can afford it. Which means the poor are on the block. Other situations, like war, pestilence and famine will affect larger sectors of the population, with the poor likely more at risk as history has demonstrated. These are also avoidable if we decide to revise global perception. I'm not so sure enough people are willing or able to understand, enact and fund that which is needed to achieve it, as it would mean a shift on consciousness that is far from our materialist way of life. I plan to die quietly in a remote region removed from civilization as dictated by mother nature and father time, peacefully accepting the process for the cycle it is and advancing to freedom from this physical realm. The only factors which will add pain to this process will be the verdict of self-judgement as I depart, and concern for the future of those I leave behind.
I've got less intention on going so quietly [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri_aSJAGTy4[/youtube]
Why are we picking on pensioners, a vast many who have worked hard all their life rather than those on unemployment benefits?
TBH, I'd prefer to go out helping the Rebel Alliance defeat the Empire, but that might be considered terrorism and I'm not interested in doing it for religious entities who seem to be the only ones actively recruiting. Maybe, assuming we're okay with the elderly starving or freezing to death due to inability to buy food and heating, we should give them a chance to die heroically as cannon fodder next time we invade a resource rich nation. Or we can use them for human testing of chemicals like the Nazis did to their prisoners. As long we get something out of it and it doesn't cost us any money... and in all fairness, the same opportunities should be available to the long term unemployed.
Depopulation would happen naturally if not for government intervention. The problem is that government has so many ponzi schemes going it needs to encourage breeding. Even so it's not doing a particularly good job, thankfully, but it is encouraging the least responsible in society to breed more. Idiocracy, here we come.
Very well said. People are so eager to jump into all the emotional side of things without actually examining it logically. No-one wants to let people who genuinely need help suffer, but the reality is, this number is far smaller than what most of these people would have you believe. Welfare is completely out of control. But that's what happens when you have one giant charity (the government) that is able to take "donations" at the barrel of a gun, and needs to buy off a certain number of people in society to maintain it's support. We shouldn't expect anything else than what we have.
I'm entering middle age. I've known since Primary School that there will be no aged pension by the time I'm old enough to be eligible. After a misspent youth I'm planning accordingly and minimise my own tax as much as I can. I agree with the sentiment of the original link, as dubious as it is. The entitlement mentality is sinking the western world.
Janet Yellen is as sweet as home made apple pie .... maybe she could roll a few off the printing presses for a good cause ....
^This... It's the system that's broken and the idea of killing off the elderly to keep it going a little longer is unconscionable. How long are we going to keep putting band aids on this thing before we start addressing the root causes? I'll probably get flamed for this but I also find it interesting what some people's idea of a free ride is. The overall prosperity of this world is the aggregate of every hour of productive labour that each person contributes. Things like farming, manufacturing, construction, engineering, science, health care work etc. It seems to me that at the moment the vast majority of this prosperity is being enjoyed by an extraordinarily small percentage of people who, in a lot of cases, have never done a productive days work in their life. So who's really getting the free ride here?
Socialist - I just wanted to get in first before someone else did. Your views whilst the same as probably 99% of the population are not going to be popular here
It seems people really do think fiat is precious and has value after all .... let the poor wither and die because there isnt enough "money" ... "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" attributed to Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
The system isn't broken. It's working how it always has. That's the problem. It's a static system in a changing, evolving world. People assuming that the system can be fixed are the biggest problem. It's like all those guys in Soviet Russia saying that communism could be fixed. No it couldn't. Our system has fundamental economic and ethical problems built in from the start. It's slightly more stable than communism (which lasted 70 years in Russia!!) because unlike the Russians we have a significant free market whereas they tried to centrally plan everything. But ultimately, Central planning does not work and must be rejected.