That's why it needs to be up to the people to choose. If the need to reproduce is more important to them than the wisdom of the old then they reap what they sow. Then again, if dead wood is more important than future growth then they also reap what they sow.

Put in two different ways to show each is cruel but each has benefits.

I, err, actually didn't think about that when I made this. Point taken though.

Well, IMO, no living being is more important than any other living being, regardless of assimilated knowledge.

Hey, I'm more important than anyone. Just ask me!

I think it comes down to this: Is the islander's willingness to live within the limits set by the leader stronger than the drive to reproduce?

Well now I don't luv you no mo. ;)

Wait, yes I do. ;)


Oh, I'm all confuzzed up! SHARRON! :nuts:

Everyone migrated the hard way...Why is your scenario different? Times get tough and everyone migrates. Unless it is Easter Island where the very same thing happened and the great "wonder of the world" is why they were such idiots.
:D

Or just build some boats and try and visit something you can see for help...a distant star. People with no imagination can even leave for that destination....
I would be the first idiot on the boat trying to go to a star and find Africa instead. I would start calling them star people, thinking I had made it.
:)

They should just do more fishing.

I cannot believe that I have to be the one to say this. I am very disappointed in you "deep-thinker" Cellarites.

Just kill 100 of the pregnant women.

Oh, so now you're trying to damage the delicate ecosystem offshore as well ali?? Pfft...


fish-hater.

yes...terrible nasty me. I don't know anything. I'm the dumbest cellarite of them all.

It's the fact that you are married to a fisheries management scientist that really makes my jaw drop!

Seriously, I thought the point of HP's scenario is that the 1,000 person population limit is when they are using resources to their maximum anyway.
Any population over this will lead to resource depletion and an Easter Island style disaster.

As for sailing of into the blue in the hope of reaching somewhere else ... that would (a) require an enormous amount of resources (wood, provisions) and thus deplete the island even further, and (b) lead to the colonists having a slow painful death by thirst and starvation rather than a (presumably) quick and humane one.

Why does it make your jaw drop? Do I seem that stupid?

Just kill all the people who think you should kill 100 of the pregnant women!

I'm really sorry, but I'm not taking this discussion seriously.

Actually, I'm not that sorry, but I am a little bit.