3644

Man he’s really puffed up.

Alternate take by Glenn Beck: Rather than tripling the number of Americans, how about we just triple the weight of every American? I’m doing my part!

3645

We will outweigh the Chinese, one way or another.

3646

We just annex countries until we get there. No need for massive breeding, just massive conquest. Simple.

3647

It maybe easier to uplift class Insecta, since they already rule the biomass contest.

3648

This entire thread could well be a bunch of Yglesias tweets and articles and have roughly the same number of posts. We might even have to make a new one like when the GOP thread had too many posts to function properly.

3649

We should just annex China!

3650

3651

Hispanic majority America here we come and I’m ready for it!

3652

He’s been making that argument for a while, but usually he’s talking about immigration, mainly.

3653

Jesus. Once again, he’s joking. As I said way upthread:

His whole book is this. (In case it’s not clear, this interview from The Blaze is part of a promotional tour for his new book.) He doesn’t actually think we should get to one billion Americans. It’s an obviously ridiculous solution to a non-problem. He’s using it as a platform to discuss serious issues. It’s just like The Rent is Too Damn High.

3654

I’m a little fuzzy on the details because I only have secondhand info on Yglesias’ ideas about 1 billion Americans, but as I understand it his radical proposal is just packaging a bunch of common sense ideas that Democrats have wanted for years. Stuff like easier immigration, better social safety net for parents, etc.

The whole compete-with-china angle just seems like window dressing that is getting people like Glenn Beck to come out in favor of it.

3655

I think he actually does. He’s been arguing it for years.

3656

The “he’s only joking” is just a bullshit dodge to excuse inexcusably stupid statements.

It’s the same kind of thing that the idiots on the far right say, when called out on their stupid bullshit.

Yglesias straight up argues for increasing the population of the US, dramatically. And he’s argued this for a long time. He’s written literal books about it. And he straight up says that this is necessary, specifically from the perspective of competing with large countries like China and India.

3657

Literal books of course being different than non-literal books. Figurative books, if you will. Picture books.

3658

Anyone willing to go on Glenn Beck is a crank by definition. The annoying thing is that many of these cranks were on “our” side when they were saying the things people wanted to hear, in a very specific context.

But this just puts paid the idea that Yglessias is anything more than a media figure that likes the sound of their own voice.

3659

I’m not familiar with Yglesias and haven’t read the books, but I’m unclear what the crank aspect is here? I think that there is absolutely nothing magical about 1 billion Americans, but it’s also valid to point out that a lot proposals that progressives have traditionally been solidly for will encourage population growth.

From the Amazon description of his book:

Those are all things I support, and I suspect most progressives support. And they will all contribute to prosperity and population growth. So what exactly is the problem, just that he is touting these reforms for silly reasons?

3660

I’m with you. There isn’t anything stupid about the proposition. I haven’t read the book, but he has long argued the advantages for liberal policies of having a larger and growing population. As one example, for funding a social safety net.

3661

It’s a bit in the weeds but at the most fundamental level population growth and environmentalism are at odds. In the long run growth based futurism leads to the so called Repugnant Conclusion, in that (in effect) 70 billion people leaving in abject squalor is still “greater total happiness” than 2 billion people living in comfort.

More concretely anyone appearing on Glenn Beck is suspect of crankism. Like many so called reasonable positions appearing on crank shows means you need to take seriously the prospect that this lack of judgement reflects something deeper about their insights and personality.

3662

Yeah, but he was discussing population growth as encouraged by progressive policy ideas that would reduce poverty, reduce inequality, and promote economic growth. So while I still think that championing pop growth as its own goal is silly, I’m bang in favor of all those things that might lead to it. If that means I’m not a good environmentalist then so be it.

3663

We can make more people to work on solving the problems that come with having too many people.