I have to admit that GIMP has me beat - I’ve taught myself plenty of progs (usually in a panic because I told the interviewer I could use it and therefore had to learn it real fast - that’s how I learned Illustrator, CorelDRAW and QuarkXpress), but I just can’t seem to get the hang of GIMP.

It’s just standard corporatese - if it’s not insulting your intelligence they’re not doing it right.

Blasphemer!

If you really want to give your cat dairy as a treat, give them yoghurt - actual yoghurt, not the sugary garbage masquerading as yoghurt.

Just warm it up to room temperature before you do, and don’t overdo it.

By what measure is China or Russia “the South”?

Russia certainly was after the fall of the USSR - whether it still is is open to debate. China is an active exploiter of the “Global South” - which kind of means the concept is overdue for an update.

ZA thought their ties with the ICC are more important

Nahh, they didn’t want another repeat of the al-Bashir debacle. South Africa’s ANC regime will bend over backwards for the west and especially western corporations - but the US forgot that they will only do so behind closed doors.

I’m still undecided as to who is more irritating to deal with… the tankies over in .ml or the liberals over here.

I am really tired to hear “Global South” over and over again.

We are perfectly aware that beneficiaries of colonisation (like you) would like us here in the Global South to just shut up and give you our resources and labour for absolutely nothing - so there’s no need to say the quiet part out loud, okay?

The kitty seems impressed.

There is no such thing as a “good cop.”

Oh, look… a dishonest parasite and an honest one - but both are stil parasites.

aren’t pretty but full of genetic defects

Nature despises purity.

If there was a third sink in-between I could see this working.

Wtf does that even mean?

Pretending that production for profit and production for need is the same thing is fallacious - end of story.

All I’m trying to do is explain to you that resources are finite and too many people will burn through them.

You still haven’t managed to justify the right-wing trope of “overpopulation” - pretending that the vast majority’s consumption is (somehow) the problem isn’t proving it, merely regurgitating it.

the white people that slowed down the most.

Sooo… you have figured out that in a capitalist society access to women’s healthcare is merely another commodity - and, thanks to colonialist pillaging and repression, white people do tend to have more access to that commmodity?

You don’t say.

Population projections for the world do not show a decline.

No… it shows a trend towards stabilization - which, just by itself, demoslishes the entire concept of “overpopulation.”

Unless of course you take the lack of resources into account…

What lack of resources. Resources being hoarded by a capitalist elite was as true in 1950 as it was in 2023 - so how does that affect the trope you are trying to justify?

Water used for industry is still going to be used regardless of who controls that industry.

Absolutely not. Pretending that capitalism doesn’t work the way capitalism works is a certain dead-end for your argument.

they just don’t have a means to act on it.

That is one piss-poor justification for the status quo.

Population growth has slowed but it has not stopped.

The people at the top aren’t worried about population growth these days, Clyde - they are worried about population reversal. You wanna know why?

Whether Malthus himself was a right-winger or not isn’t really important… it doesn’t change how the trope of overpopulation has been used to protect power and privilege (ie, the whole point of right-wing ideology). For instance, there is a very good reason why white supremacists support the criminalization of women’s health care in (supposedly) “white” countries while demonizing 3rd world countries for their (supposedly) “explosive population growth.”

It’s a very old trope that flattens human consumption and therefore camouflages the reality that certain classes of people consume resources at astronomical rates in comparison with the rest. It’s utility in shielding class hierarchies from scrutiny should be perfectly obvious.

The article says rich people are using 2x as much water as poor people domestically.

FTFY. That’s just household use, Clyde. We haven’t even started with the water usage that makes the rich rich - ie, the private ownership of industry and commerce (which, of course, externalizes the destruction of water resources).

That’s hardly out of the realm of possibility considering the population already has gone up 8x since 1950

That kind of population growth is a thing of the past. The only way to successfully reverse that would be by design - such as the measures taken by certain aspects of the US political establishment to enforce patriarchal norms through institutionalized violence (ie, the criminalization of women’s healthcare).

You do you.

This…

All things being equal (and that’s the important factor) there is next-to-no chance of us ever reaching such a bizarre amount of people

…just went completely over your head, didn’t it?

What standard of living do you consider “all things being equal”?

I don’t consider “standards of living” - period.

I consider this.

Oh, there probably is. All things being equal (and that’s the important factor) there is next-to-no chance of us ever reaching such a bizarre amount of people - you could triple the amount of people on earth, and, all things being equal, we still wouldn’t be “overpopulated.”

However, things are not equal - which means we are already existing way beyond that which our ecology can support. And it’s all thanks to capitalist parasites - a very small group of people sucking everything dry at the expense of everyone and everything else.