I see a bad moon rising
May. 13th, 2002 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyIn the press recently, there’s been a lot of hang-wringing about the recent rise of ‘far right groups’ in Europe; the most obvious examples being in Burnley, France and Holland. However, just what sort of far-right are we talking about these days? Burnley, sadly, is good old fashioned ignorant White Supremacists, plain & simple, which is kinda embarrassing to be it the same country as, but the French and Dutch situations are much more interesting and complex.
In France, Jean Marie le Pen polled very well with the French Jewish community – so he’ll be one of those special fascists that Jews like. And in Holland, the late Pim Fortuyn exhibited few of the usual far-right personality traits – he was post-marxist, pro-libertarian, openly promiscuously homosexual, advocated legalised drugs and prostitution…I don’t really think that he & Mussolini would have got on very well, you know. Now Pim is gone, he’s likely to be replaced by his secretary, Joao Valera – who is not only all the things that Pim was, he’s from Sierra Leone and hardly the Aryan ideal…
Not since the 1930s have the evil right-wing Jackbooted gay drug-fuelled Marxist intellectuals held Europe in such an iron grip. No, hang on, that can’t be right, can it?
So what the Hell is going on?
Western Europe has a fairly honourable tradition – better than pretty much anywhere else in the world, and I include the USA in that statement - of tolerant liberal democracy, and people are beginning to see that tradition as being under threat. Many people in Europe like living in countries where gay lifestyles are tolerated, or recreational drug users aren’t beheaded, and women can do things like vote and get jobs. Couple that with the fact that Christian religious fundamentalism (in Europe, anyway) is a fairly minority or fringe sport, and things have ticked along fairly reasonably for quite some time. The fear people are seeing now is that of Fnudamentalist Islam, and immigration of people who aren’t prepared to tolerate homosexuals, or promiscuity, or drugs or many other things that years of secular tolerance in Europe have resulted in – and this is driving Europe itself increasingly towards isolationism.
I was reminded last week of a conversation I had about 5-6 years ago, in which I came out with the idea that Europe would become increasingly right-wing, and may end up closing it’s borders to much immigration. I didn’t come up with this due to political theory, I came up with it due to demographics. The human race is expanding in numbers at a rate unprecedented in history. More people are now alive on earth than are dead – the living human population is now greater than the sum total human population that has gone before it, since the last ice-age 100,000 years ago. This population growth rate is unsustainable – some authorities estimate that if the rate of increase continues in the twenty-first century at the rate it did in the twentieth, there will be 100,000,000,000 people by 2100. This can’t happen – there’s neither the room nor the resources for that many people, and it it’s inevitable that we’re seeing the very likely prospect of a population crash within our lifetimes. But until the crash comes, we’re increasingly going to see more and more people living on less and less.
Necessarily, this puts increased demand upon available resources – human behaviour is at heart economic behaviour, with competition for and holding of resources being the driving force behind most actions that we take as a species. The fact is that there aren’t enough resources to go around, and that’s where the problems start. Fundamentalism of any sort, be it religious, political, or any other isn’t caused by genetic factors – people aren’t born to become suicide bombers. What causes it is environment and, more importantly, two factors – poverty (or feeling poor) and jealousy. It is no coincidence that fundamentalism is most on the rise in those countries which border upon wealthier countries, or which have the greatest disparity between rich and poor. Wealthy people have nothing to prove – the poor do, especially when they are reminded upon a daily basis of the wealth of their neighbours. I’d suspect that broadcasts of Dynasty and The Young & the Beautiful into Iran have led to more people being recruited to the fundamentalist cause that any number of 8 hour speeches by Khameni. Religion does this in a very simple way – it makes not having wealth into a virtue, and the having of it into a sin, allowing the poor – who have no real hope of ever attaining the wealth they see on their screens - a feeling of moral superiority. And from that superiority comes dogmatism and fundamentalism.
So why is this a problem?
Back to Demographics again. By an odd coincidence, populations are also rising most rapidly in those countries which don’t follow the Western model of libertarian free-market capitalism. Presumably this is because of the opportunity that women have to make their own careers and lives in the West, or a combination of related factors. However, as populations grow, they will increasingly outstrip the resources available to them, which will lead to increases of poverty, jealousy of those wealthier countries, and eventually fundamentalism. In short, Europe, the US, and Aus/NZ will increasingly be the target of a hell of a lot of very hungry, very jealous people on their borders who feel morally superior. And that means trouble. Malthus wrote his essay on the principles of population about a situation like the one we’re going to be facing. Unless people can learn to live with each other, and also control their rate of reproduction, pestience, famine and war are going to be mighty spectres in the coming century – so it’s pretty much a given that we’re heading for trouble.
And that is why the unusual sight of left wing intellectuals calling for bans on immigration is going to become an increasingly common one over time. The borders of Europe will become increasingly crowded with hungry, desperate people, pleading for some of our good life – and there aren’t going to be the resources to give it to them. Europe, the US, and the rest will have to decide whether to accept a dramatic fall in living standards…or to try and hold back the tide. I don’t know about you but I’m going to buy 15,000 tins of spam and a fortified cellar, because I reckon there’s trouble coming.
So: Some predictions.
1) The US will grow closer to Mexico and subsidise it. This is to use it as a buffer zone against the hungry millions of latin and south America. A few wetbacks are a small price to pay.
2) The US will grow closer to Canada, and eventually annexe it (within 100 years) for it's natural resources.
3) Europe will grow increasingly right wing in terms of immigration, but remain loosely left-wing in practise democracies for the forseeable.
4) The development of a European Army will continue - britain has just ordered two supercarriers, for which we do not have the support fleet to keep safe. The only possible use for these is as a centrepiece of a combined European navy, which will prinarily be to keep the lid on the middle east.
5) Global populations will continue to rise, resulting in more deforestation, famine, pestilence and wars.
6) We will see race-specific diseases developed within the decade (we can already identify the genetic marker for black and Han Chinese characteristics. The question is, who will be first?)
7) New Zealand will increasingly look like a nice place to go and live.
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no subject
Date: 2002-05-13 09:19 am (UTC)Most of the genetic markers used are in non-coding (so called junk DNA) sequences which therefore would have little to no impact on immunity and on expressed traits, that is to say it would be nigh on impossible to make something that attacks these things as they don't express as proteins or other functional biomolecules.
However it is possible that they could be used as target sequences for say retroviral integration of some kind of negative traits which could cause disease however this would mean great strides would have to be made in DNA targeting technologies as currently DNA transfer processes are highly random as to where in the genome they integrate.
With the current trend away from GM foods etc in places like europe and the move towards delivering the benefits to third world countries in products like golden rice (rice with increased beta carotene) etc perhaps the "threat" could come from this arena...
hmm I think at current development levels its unlikely however technology often takes roads we don't anticipate.
Matt
Molecular biologist by trade (doesn't show does it :-) )
no subject
Date: 2002-05-13 11:58 am (UTC)Then you need to find genes that are associated with susceptibility to your agent/toxin etc found only in that race, AND these have to be close on the chromosome to the assortative mating gene.
Then you have a race specific weapon. If your susceptibility gene is just randomly located in the genome, recombination between susceptibility and racial characteristics will occur, and almost anyone could be carrying the susceptible type. This leads to questions over exactly what constitutes a race: which genes do you make your distinction on? Read if you like
'Population genetics: A new apportionment of human diversity' (1997) by Nick Barton in Current Biology Vol 7: R757-R758.
It implies quite strongly that the human race is fairly genetically homogenous (and hence useful differences will be rare).
Re:
Date: 2002-05-13 12:20 pm (UTC)what with the cohen "gene" (spelling might be wrong) which only shows in the priest class of jewish society. Population to be targeted would have to be strongly inbreeding and you could really only target Y chromosome or perhaps mitochondrial DNA (hmm unsure of this it is female tagged so one could expect it but then again it is small and highly conserved).
It is possible but any weapon would be fairly restrictive in its uses as the target group would be narrow.
hmm might check that reference up...
As I said I agree with you I think its highly unlikely, people tend to think you can do anything with genetics etc. these days and that those folk that do it are some kind of Dr Frankenstein mad scientist types.
Its far more likely that people will be able to create a genetic underclass predisposed to early death or something (bladerunner esque) or a super pure genetic ubermensch (a la Gattaca) than racial gene targeting super bugs. (even these are bloody unlikely)
Much easier to create super bugs and then keep the cure to your chosen few, so why bother with all the effort..
you seem to know a lot about this what do you do?
no subject
Date: 2002-05-14 02:20 am (UTC)Tim
Re:
Date: 2002-05-14 04:56 am (UTC)cool
I worked for Monsanto until recently doing molecular marker work for wheat...
You tend to get to hear a lot about genetics and stuff that way.
no subject
Date: 2002-05-14 05:36 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-05-14 06:48 am (UTC)Most of the major companies had no idea the sort of bad PR they would get, and due to the "well meaning" actions of pressure groups and the just plain bad experiments of a few, the public is fed information that is poor at best and just plain wrong at worst.
grumble grumble
I agree whole heartedly that people these days leap to the wrong conclusions based on scant information and this is inherently dangerous to both good science and society at large.
no subject
Date: 2002-05-14 08:54 am (UTC)Let me put a record straight: interspecific DNA transfer occurs naturally in plants. DNA on its own will do nothing to you whatsoever. The products of the gene don't usually make it into the food part. And they're harmless.
Re:
Date: 2002-05-14 09:35 am (UTC)Herbicide tolerance in crops isn't the best PR exercise for GM food either...
Bt crops are better IMHO as are value added crops (eg increased vitamin content) and disease resistant varieties etc.
As for DNA transfer in plants in occurs naturally and has been used for years in something like wheat for example (as its what I know best) a large number of the current commercial varieties have rye intergressions(sp) and its made up of three species of grass to start with..
Gene products are heavily screened for toxicity and allergy reactions etc. can generally be tagged to only express in none food tissues (dependant on what the use is going to be)
Perfectly edible and safe
But then obviously I would say that...
no subject
Date: 2002-05-15 01:18 am (UTC)"Eat recycled food - It's good for environment, and okay for you!"
Re:
Date: 2002-05-15 05:02 am (UTC)true
But it is safe to eat.
Any concerns really should be focused on environmental impact IMO.