Re: @RonWheeler - Or...
Ron Wheeler: 'Ye' is an extremely archaic form of the second-person plural nominative, identical in meaning to modern "you all" or "y'all"; your use of it here is just plain wrong. 'Sirrah' constitutes a direct insult, or would do were I to assume any actual knowledge of the word on your part, which assumption would clearly be erroneous. 'Thy' is an archaic, highly informal version of the second-person singular possessive; it is today commonly found only among ignorant Renaissance Faire types and Quakers of the "plain speech" ilk, of whom the less said the better. Your implication of religious faith on my part, while accurate, fails to sustain the implicit obloquy with which you strive to invest it.
Permit me humbly to suggest, as one who is a somewhat accomplished prose-stylist to one who is not, that you bone up on the forms in question, before further befouling yourself in public with their profligate abuse; as an acceptable second best, you might at least confine yourself to addressing the substance of my statement, rather than committing another embarrassment along the line of your most recent effort. Should you find yourself capable of neither task, you would be well advised, if rather unlikely, to conform your behavior to Switzer's maxim.
To address what I will, solely for the sake of discussion, dignify as your response to Marsden: You absolutely do suggest the elimination of what you so charmingly call "breeders". That you do not, yet, suggest they be punished with fire and the sword for procreating, but rather merely ostracized and shunned for their notional ignorance and selfishness, does not in any way preclude the suggestion that they be suppressed by more positive means. Speaking with an eye to history, something else which I suspect you lack, "mere" ostracism tends rarely to remain so; a belief as uncompromising as yours, after all, is unlikely in the extreme to find itself capable of, much less satisfied with, "out of sight, out of mind".
Graham Marsden: You imply causation where none is known to exist; at most, it has been demonstrated that, among some cohorts in some societies, women who have further advanced their education will tend to have fewer children. The strength and generality of this correlation remain, at least to my knowledge, uncertain in the extreme, to say nothing of whether any causal mechanism has been demonstrated; while I'll grant my lack of specific interest in the field might have betrayed me in the former question, I very much doubt an answer exists for anything remotely resembling the latter.
As you demonstrate yourself a eugenicist of the same stripe as our common interlocutor, may I pose you the same question I did him? Perhaps you'll offer the meaningful answer he couldn't. As one who feels himself qualified to render an opinion on the relative value of whole societies' sexual behavior, does it not concern you that Western societies already reproduce well below replacement rate? Your preferred means of population control -- that is, positive eugenics through the increased availability of higher education, something applicable only to societies sufficiently affluent to consider such increase -- suggests not, which inspires a certain curiosity on my part, as to the basis of your evident wish further to dis-privilege the world's most advanced and capable societies in the reproductive stakes. Have I perhaps mistaken you? If so, I eagerly await correction; if not, I likewise await satisfaction.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
