Class polling

Bee

Okay, so my Geology class is making everyone pay like $14 to sign up for a polling service.  Which blows, and I was pissed off about it as late as this morning, especially since the class already uses Blackboard and you can get the same fucking thing for free by just setting up a quiz and making all answers award full credit or be worth 0 points.

But ANYWAY.

So after discussing global sustainability and the effects of increasing population on it (spoiler: they're not good), we were polled to see what option we would prefer:

A) Global mandatory population control
Increasing women's rights in the third world
C) Some things that were blatantly stupid or ineffectual (do nothing, etc)

Over 2/3 of the class voted for A.

Despite the previous half hour showing how much of a clusterfuck that was in China.

AHR

That's odd. Isn't the population decreasing? I mean, it's increasing, but the rate of increase is decreasing?

Or something?

I mean, most people are having less kids. Down to 2.1

Bee

Sort of.  Developed countries are pretty close to stable in regard to population, but explosive growth tends to be concentrated in the places least able to handle it.  Couple that with concerns over arable land worldwide, and recent biofuel demands spiking that to hell and back (a full tank of ethanol is roughly equivalent to a year's supply of food for one person), and things still aren't looking good.

LouieW

Bee,

Yeah, I tend to find support for global mandatory population control somewhat worrying, especially when it seems to mostly come in countries that do not actually have a population problem like the U.S. I feel like it tends to coincide with disrespect for people's rights (like life) in developing countries and tends to ignore actual conditions on the ground in favor of a dramatic policy.

Also, I cannot say I am a fan of the whole "doomsday" justification for such extreme population control measures. I mean, sure not doing anything will have some pretty bad consequences, but raising the education levels of women in developing areas is a lot more humane than sterilization camps and is quite a bit more practical (from what I can tell) too. Once you start doing that, I think people naturally have fewer children because they need to spend more time doing stuff like work outside the home.

On the topic at hand, making everyone in a class pay to use a polling service for a poll that is only for that class does seem pretty silly.

SotiCoto

I probably shouldn't say too much here.... but.... 

Obvious answer is obvious:   Kill moar people... especially heavy breeders. 
Isn't really feasible to stop people breeding cos they're stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid (etc)... so it is better to just kill as many as possible. And just remember: every person killed raises the potential quality of life by a tiny fraction for those that remain. Kill off half the global population (preferably the worst contributors, but we wouldn't want to be TOO biased) and the remaining half will be practically cruising. 

glennmagusharvey

Population control is pretty much impossible, short of mass murder, and that idea is pretty damn unpopular.

I would have gone for B.

...but you had to pay $14 in order to vote in this poll?  Couldn't someone have just constructed a box and asked people to rip off little pieces of paper?