In my last couple of posts, I've been discussing Maurice King and his concept of demographic entrapment. I have been looking over his list of 'demons' guarding the Hardinian Taboo (listed on his website here.) I thought I'd make a condensed list, based on his. His thinking has remarkable scope, to the point that it is very difficult to follow organizationally.

Anyway, here's my list. It's a work in progress, as I refine and eliminate redundancies.

Impediments to open discussion about overpopulation
grouped into related issues:

• Resistance of rich countries to reducing their levels of resource consumption
• Capitalist economy’s investment in status quo; resistance to change
• Flawed economic view which does not account for cost of replacing base resources/ repairing environmental damage while manufacturing goods

• Perceived and actual negative effects of one-child families

• Human rights movement’s relationship to reproduction
• Feminist’s relationship to reproduction
• Religious objection to contraception
• Religious objection to abortion
• Revered status of children in Western culture

• Cultural/Regional attitudes favoring high fertility/children as a proof of virility
  

• Apathy and disconnectedness of majority of citizens
• Fear of facing the issue and its implications
• Political correctness/Fear of heated argument (‘benign uproar’)
• Fear of being considered ethnocentric/racist/classist/mysogynist/mysopedist/fascist
• Fear of implementing coercive measures

• Unrealistic expectations that new technology will provide solutions

I'm not even sure that covers it all. But at least I'm looking out over a wider view of the problem than I was before - thanks, Dr. King.

King Springboard?

Maurice King's website, Demographic Entrapment, has got a wealth of ideas on it. So many, in fact, that it is entirely daunting. How to extract the good content from this site and distill it into a form that is streamlined and made plain?

I'm thinking, start with his list of "Demons". He has entitled the obstacles which guard and protect the Hardinian taboo "Demons", and offers a list of over 30.

That list, boiled down to its essence, would be a useful tool in identifying what actions need to be taken to break down the Hardinian taboo.

I'll make a stab at that, and publish the results here.

The Hardinian Taboo

I was mining the links at the bottom of the population control Wiki, when I clicked on this one:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/315/7120/1441#The_Hardinian_taboo

This is a very interesting paper written in 1997 by Drs Maurice King and Charles Elliot, of Leeds and Cambridge Universities, respectively. It concerns the blanket of silence that surrounds the issue of population control.
Another article, also published in the BMJ, but in 1999:
Population Policy Lockstep

Here is a link to a short article about Dr. King and his background. It's interesting to know more about him - his website, Demographic Entrapment, is kind of 'all over the place' and though not incoherent, difficult to wade through due to organizational deficits.