DOOMSDAY: UT professor says death is imminent

The Gazette-Enterprise (Texas) ^ | April 2, 2006 | Jamie Mobley

[adiaireton8]

AUSTIN — A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead.

“Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine,” Though his statements are admittedly bold, he’s not without abundant advocates. But what may set this revered biologist apart from other doomsday soothsayers is this: Humanity’s collapse is a notion he embraces.

Indeed, his words deal, very literally, on a life-and-death scale, yet he smiles and jokes candidly throughout the lecture. Disseminating a message many would call morbid, Pianka’s warnings are centered upon awareness rather than fear.

“This is really an exciting time,” he said Friday amid warnings of apocalypse, destruction and disease. Only minutes earlier he declared, “Death. This is what awaits us all. Death.” Reflecting on the so-called Ancient Chinese Curse, “May you live in interesting times,” he wore, surprisingly, a smile.

So what’s at the heart of Pianka’s claim?

6.5 billion humans is too many.

In his estimation, “We’ve grown fat, apathetic and miserable,” all the while leaving the planet parched.

The solution?

A 90 percent reduction.

That’s 5.8 billion lives — lives he says are turning the planet into “fat, human biomass.” He points to an 85 percent swell in the population during the last 25 years and insists civilization is on the brink of its downfall — likely at the hand of widespread disease.

“[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity,” Pianka said. “We’re looking forward to a huge collapse.”

[mtbopfuyn]

Like that show 'Numbers'. Can't that 'genius' comb his freakin'hair?

Apparently that's just the way his hair is. He's been in several shows/movies and it's always a mop.

[mtbopfuyn]

Personally, I keep 3 months, plus drinking water, so I can stay at home in a disease emergency.

Same here, plus ammo.

[alrea]

Tenured.

Taxpayer financed.

Liberal.

Selfish-Jealous-Egotistical Socialist

[cgbg]

Thomas Malthus. According to that guy we were never born since our parents were already dead.

These leftist academics remind me of the religious cults that are convinced the End of the World is coming by a certain date. Then when the date passes they quiet down for a while and hope everybody forgets their earlier prediction.

A few years later they return--a new date for The End.

This man is stupid stupid stupid--I don't care how many degrees he has, books he has written, and accolades he has received. He is a total loon.

[mtbopfuyn]

Re the kook's website - egads, he's spent his life with lizards and thinks he knows what's best for mankind...

[patriot_wes]

" UT professor says death is imminent"

Moron needs to be knocked off his soapbox!

[pleasedontzotme]

Steven Hawking. (spelling?)

Now, stop beating yourself up. You'll kill yourself with that club.

(Of course, this prof would think that's a good thing...)

[neutrino]

We particles have long felt that there are way too many of you humans. It's encouraging that one of you has figured this out.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Why is it that these people never offer to go first?

[dread78645]

By the by, dread, you do recognize the lies in post #35- right?

Yep. Mixing a kernel of truth with half-truths and BS.
AIDS is a problem. Avian flu might (or not) be a problem. Education and medicine can handle that.
Millions have died of starvation in Africa for centuries, before the press thought it was worth reporting. And they'll continue to die, in spite of the press and Bono.
In North America, there'll always be wildfires, droughts, earthquakes, hurricanes and other unpleasant things happening. Just like they always have.
Not much humans can do about that.

[SlowBoat407]

This scenario was envisioned twice in the last 20 years by two different authors.

Don't forget the James Bond movie "Moonraker". Bad example, I know, but it's the same story: Whack-job tries to rid earth of the "plague" of humanity while he and his merry band plan to wait out the destruction on a space station.

[I still care]

http://www.vhemt.org/

Voluntary human extinction.

Sounds like he belongs to this group.

[Drew68]

Let's set emotion aside for a minute and think about this. Should a worldwide pandemic weep across the globe, who would be the likely victims? The Third World who are already suffering from lack of health care, sanitation, overcrowding, proper diet, education and a host of other pathologies. The Western World, on the other hand, will still be hit but our access to better living will help minimize the damage. Think AIDS which is spreading like wildfire through the Third World but here is largely confined to gay men, their female sex partners and drug users.

So this pandemic hits and the vast majority of the victims will be impoverished Third World residents. The disease will be the least of our concerns. The worldwide social upheaval will be far more damaging. Think of boatloads after boatloads of infected, panic-stricken Africans arriving at our shores. Navy destroyers would probably be employed to sink them before they arrived! To think about the panic that would ensue in a major outbreak makes my skin crawl. It reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand.

[Treader]

Well, like ya said- throughout all the prior turmoil- someone had to survive for a couple days- just to bring us to this conversation. lol...we just might make it, a little farther down that old road.

[Malacoda]

Like Peter Singer, who think s all "useless eaters," such as the incapacitated elderly and handicappped children, should be offed...except for his own mom, who has Alzheimer's.

"But that's different. She's my moooooom."

[truemiester]

“Every one of you who gets to survive has to bury nine,”

All 9 of mine will be professors!

You know, I'll have to take out another 9 for my grandson, and I'll take out another 9 for my wife. Using new math, as taught in public schools, that is 128 professors I have to take out. (9+9+9+101=128, New math. The extra points are added so no one fails and feels bad)

Looking around, I'm gonna have to buy so more ammo. Any good skrools I can go to take out my quota?

[Tribune7]

Mims attended the educator’s doomsday presentation at the Texas Academy of Science’s annual meeting March 2-4. There, the organization honored Pianka as its 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist — another issue Mims vocally opposes.

Wonder how the Texas Academy of Science feels about I.D. I'm sure they'd given an honor to the controversial Dembski < /sarcasm>

Anyway, the antidote to twisted SOBs like Pianka: The Doomslayer

[Tribune7]

For your ping list.

[new cruelty]

The Seguin Gazette. Neat. I was born in Seguin. Creepy article, though.

[chilepepper]

The return of not just Nazism, but the eugenics fashionable among socialists in the 1930's that made Nazism seem "modern" and "with it" to many of the shallow thinking leftists of the day.

It bears remembering the eugenics of Pol Pot and Stalin, not just Hitler, in clearing "progressive society" of its misfits while on the path to the new world order populated by the new socialist ubermensch...