So... yes, the carrying capacity is 1 billion is a valid environmental theory (I happen to think the theory is incorrect, but yeah, whatever, unless of course the Peter Cline 14 theory is correct, and once we reached 1 billion people, we were vulnerable to Cthulu type interstellar super-predators, but that one is so far fetched...) but the basis of that theory is that the 1 billion would be living at European/USian standards of living. The carrying capacity of the planet at lower standards of living is higher.
So why destroy part of the relatively minor 300 million people who are already comfortable with the technology and means of production of the higher standard of living? Europe and the US actually get things like low birth rates because we have a functional expectation of low infant mortality and a higher degree of a social safety net, so we don't look on reproduction as long-term security. (Not that USians have a great track record on low infant mortality, contraception and social safety nets, but we have the functional understanding of the concept.) It will take many years to properly indoctrinate a culture that believes a dozen children is a good start to maintain the low population. It will take no time at all to reinforce already present beliefs. (Though having the low population is ultimately stupid for the rich "they" if they want to remain rich. That's econ 101 -- if demand drops, the over supply becomes waste and the value ceases to exist. "They" need consumers for their Ponzi scheme to keep working.)
As awful as this is to think, and as much as I want to make clear that I have absolutely zero advocacy for this at all, if the point is to drop the planet's population to 1 billion very rapidly, the worst way to do so is to behead a bunch of USians. For one, it's slow, retail extermination, like squishing each ant marching into my kitchen individually with a chopstick. (Better to pull out the boric acid and get it over with.) Sadly, large bombs in densely crowded cities are more effective and faster. They don't even have to be nuclear bombs (since that would be bad for the 1 billion survivors). If it's come down to Lifeboat Planet Earth and "they" are in charge of picking who gets to stay dry and who has to play with the sharks, "they" are going to pick those they consider most productive -- the Midwestern farmer with 500 acres of corn is going to beat out the Indian farmer on 2 acres of okra, and the midtown Manhattan hedge fund manager. The former is subsistence and thus is low on the utilitarian greatest good scale; the latter is a parasite who contributes nothing to absolute survival.
Not to mention the absolute disposal problem. There is no way for 1 billion people to effectively bury, burn or otherwise dispose of 6 billion bodies. Even over a decade, the survivors would be so exhausted and traumatized that the plan would end in actual revolution against the "They" long before it hit even 1/10th of its goal.
Dammit, conspiracy theorists. Think it out. If they're creative enough to come up with this, they should at least have the sense to poke a few holes in their own dearly beloved intellectual atrocities. It's all fear and no thinking. It makes me wonder if there is not actually a virus that punches the amygdala into anxiety reactions on no stimulus (rather like toxoplasmosis does with other brain structures) that has somehow gone endemic.
= new reply since forum marked as read
