Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bobboau on September 12, 2010, 01:58:54 am
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So let's look at the state of the world. There are nearly 7 billion people. The world can scarcely handle what we have now. In 50 years it will double. The world will not be able to handle that, it is simply too many people. The growth rate has not diminished much seance the end of the black death, it did peak at about twice it's current level shortly after WW2, but the trend is clear that the population doubles every 50 years. There is only a limited amount of resources and it would take 20 years for any actual change in population growth to have any effect on the related growth of resource consumption. most of these resources are limited in total volume, that is when they run out they will be gone unilaterally reducing your own population growth will only provide those who do not with the resources you didn't consume, so the ones who act most responsibly will be naturally selected against.
What will the world be like in 50 years?
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People 50 years ago probably didn't think the world would be able to sustain 7 Billion people today.
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People 50 years ago probably didn't think the world would be able to sustain 7 Billion people today.
And they thought there would be a lot more people, but then they suddenly made birth control a lot easier
The black death would have killed us all, but we invented the quarantine.
Hydrocarbon gasse burn a hole in Ozon, but we eliminated the problem and the ozon layer is restoring slowly.
Carbon dioxide was going to warm up the earth, but CO2 'sponges' are in development which are able to eliminate that problem too.
Oil is going to run out, but there already cars on hydrogen.
The natural condition of the earth is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster...
... Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
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"Hydrocarbon gasse burn a hole in Ozon"
chlorofluorocarbons.
I'm sure life in the auger seems well and good for the bacteria too.
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thats why i live in alaska, cant think of a better place to sit back and watch the world burn from. enjoy your nuclear explosions.
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Actually I believe that in some models the world population is due to peak in the near future and will then begin to decline.
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how do those models come to that prediction?
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http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6846/full/412543a0.html
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I would rather you summarize than have to pay to read the article.
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I would rather you summarize than have to pay to read the article.
Weird, I don't have to pay. I guess because I'm on a school connection?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Growth
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Not an expert on this, but I'm pretty sure that the western world (which is a minority of the population) is using up a majority of the resources you're talking about, not the booming Chinese/Indian populations... We can probably sustain much higher populations, but I don't think we can have everyone living the hyper-luxurious lifestyle that the western world currently enjoys.
In other words, I'm much more worried about the long-term unsustainability of western lifestyle and culture than I am about explosive population growth.
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its quality or quantity, you cant have both. the earth would explode if it had 7 billion americans on it.
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So let's look at the state of the world. There are nearly 7 billion people. The world can scarcely handle what we have now. In 50 years it will double. The world will not be able to handle that, it is simply too many people. The growth rate has not diminished much seance the end of the black death, it did peak at about twice it's current level shortly after WW2, but the trend is clear that the population doubles every 50 years. There is only a limited amount of resources and it would take 20 years for any actual change in population growth to have any effect on the related growth of resource consumption. most of these resources are limited in total volume, that is when they run out they will be gone unilaterally reducing your own population growth will only provide those who do not with the resources you didn't consume, so the ones who act most responsibly will be naturally selected against.
What will the world be like in 50 years?
It's worth mentioning that the vast majority of that population growth will occur in the poorest regions, so ultimately it wont affect us much unless they choose to industrialize.
I would rather you summarize than have to pay to read the article.
Weird, I don't have to pay. I guess because I'm on a school connection?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Growth
Schools usually pay top dollar so all their students/employees have full access to it.
Not an expert on this, but I'm pretty sure that the western world (which is a minority of the population) is using up a majority of the resources you're talking about, not the booming Chinese/Indian populations... We can probably sustain much higher populations, but I don't think we can have everyone living the hyper-luxurious lifestyle that the western world currently enjoys.
In other words, I'm much more worried about the long-term unsustainability of western lifestyle and culture than I am about explosive population growth.
It really depends on technology. Using current technology, no. But it is advancing, battery tech is getting better, nanotech is right around the corner, GMO is here to feed the world, etc. We will still enjoy our hyper luxerious lifestyle, although China and eventually India will join us as well.
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Almost every western and/or 1st world country in the world actually has a fairly rapidly declining population (relatively). TFRs (Total Fertility Rates. Basically the number of children borne per woman.) in most of Europe are below two (two is the smallest number that would result in population growth - discounting immigration), and some are low enough to be almost below 1.5. I think one of the only two or three 1st world/western countries in the world actually experiencing population growth is the U.S., and then only because we allow nearly a million legal immigrants a year.
Places in Africa, India, and some Middle Eastern countries are experiencing growth, true, but they also don't use anywhere near the resources western/1st world nations do.
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Places in Africa, India, and some Middle Eastern countries are experiencing growth, true, but they also don't use anywhere near the resources western/1st world nations do.
But they will, ASAP.
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We can probably sustain much higher populations, but I don't think we can have everyone living the hyper-luxurious lifestyle that the western world currently enjoys.
In other words, I'm much more worried about the long-term unsustainability of western lifestyle and culture than I am about explosive population growth.
the western lifestyle is completely sustainable... for a smaller population, if we as a species insist on having a global population of 14 billion then no you are right we cannot, but, if there were fewer people then it's totally doable. I think the fair way of handling this is to partition the world and basically have each partition decide how they want to procede, some places might value large families over higher standard of living, and they should be allowed to make that choice if they want to, but it seems unfair that parts of the world that have decided that a higher standard of living per person should have that taken away when these parts of the world later change their minds.
note: I don't think this will ever happen, seems too logical, the parts of the world with huge unsustainable populations will be like "we want it too" and they won't care that the reason they don't have it already is because of their own choices, further they won't learn to control their population because they will not suffer the consequences of overpopulation, they will view the situation as parts of the world feeling that they are better than them and indignant they will likely start a resource war.
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Can't we just strip-mine the asteroid belt and solve the resource crisis that way?
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It really depends on technology. Using current technology, no. But it is advancing, battery tech is getting better, nanotech is right around the corner, GMO is here to feed the world, etc. We will still enjoy our hyper luxerious lifestyle, although China and eventually India will join us as well.
Glad someone is more optimistic about this than I am. I don't have that much faith in technology.
the western lifestyle is completely sustainable... for a smaller population, if we as a species insist on having a global population of 14 billion then no you are right we cannot, but, if there were fewer people then it's totally doable.
Is it sustainable without a billion people working for dirt-cheap in China to prop it up? Is it really possible to have a high-tech consumer society of all nobles and no peasants? I have grave doubts.
I think the fair way of handling this is to partition the world and basically have each partition decide how they want to procede, some places might value large families over higher standard of living, and they should be allowed to make that choice if they want to, but it seems unfair that parts of the world that have decided that a higher standard of living per person should have that taken away when these parts of the world later change their minds.
Great idea! We should call them "countries." :p
What do you do if none of them allow you to live how you want?
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When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.
- Thomas Hobbes
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...hyper-luxurious lifestyle that the western world currently enjoys.
In other words, I'm much more worried about the long-term unsustainability of western lifestyle and culture than I am about explosive population growth.
I was unaware that I lived a "Hyper Luxurious" life style. The non-sustainable part only comes in because we're brainwashed to replace EVERYTHING once a decade or so. We're fixing to bring in this years harvest using a combine that is almost as old as I am.
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Granted, I'm not a demographer, but I've taken a few demography courses. The credible consensus is that the world's population will peak within the next 25 years and then decline to stable numbers, at roughly the 8 billion (IIRC) mark.
This is due to two factors: (1) low fertility in the developed world, and (2) an imminent shift in the developing world to a more developed state. Essentially, children go from being an economic asset in a developing economy to an economic liability in a developed economy, which is the single largest reason why parents in developed countries have fewer children (usually just around replacement). What is now the developed world went through this shift in the 1950s-1960s; the signs of it occurring in the developing world started a while back and are slowly increasing.
Regardless of the details, the population explosion that the Chicken Little's of the world are keen to predict is seen as a complete fallacy by most demographers.
And there is no doubt that the lifestyle common in Western societies is unsustainable - our economic system is based largely on the extension of credit (which we're already seen tank) and the myth of technology solving all the world's ills is rapidly being proven as such. Technology may keep the standard of living high, but the days of mass consumerism are numbered. This is not to say that "green" initiatives are going to solve the world's ills either - most "green" initiatives are opportunistic bunk propagated by people who see it as a way to make some serious money quickly. The "organic" food nonsense is completely unsustainable too (and bad for the environment to boot).
Most of us are liable to see a large shift in lifestyle within our lifetimes - not necessarily tumultuous or in a short timeframe, but dramatic in scope. Water, not oil, is the resource most likely to drive it.
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Glad someone is more optimistic about this than I am. I don't have that much faith in technology.
Because of science and technology we have reliable, clean drinking water and lifespans have doubled in 100 years. It's also because of science and technology that, with the exception of world war 1 and 2, the western world has completely done away with famine. When you read about some poor africans or whoever that don't have clean water or whatever, it's because they dont have the technology we do.
the western lifestyle is completely sustainable... for a smaller population,
Again, you're making assumptions based on current technologies.
our economic system is based largely on the extension of credit
While this is true in the US, in several western Euro countries this has not been the case. And even so, 30 years ago we when credit was definately not cheap, we still had a very high standard of living far above and beyond the rest of the world.
the myth of technology solving all the world's ills is rapidly being proven as such.
Like what?
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Responding in several different directions at once...
I was unaware that I lived a "Hyper Luxurious" life style. The non-sustainable part only comes in because we're brainwashed to replace EVERYTHING once a decade or so. We're fixing to bring in this years harvest using a combine that is almost as old as I am.
I guess I can't speak for you, but I know that I definitely am. Like most Americans, I have shelter, I have work, I have enough food that I can afford to glut myself to the point of obesity AND still waste most of it. I have so much stuff that is so far beyond basic necessities that calling it anything but a luxury is unthinkable. I have access to practically all of human knowledge at my fingertips. I may not be able to buy absolutely everything money can buy, but like most Americans, a heck of a lot of it is within reach. I live so comfortably that I can afford to engage in pointless debates and arguments in an obscure corner of the internet dedicated to shuffling around bits to build and explore imaginary worlds. Naturally, what constitutes "luxury" is in the eye of the beholder, but compared to almost all of the world and almost all of human history, I've got it very, very, very, very good. When the poorest Americans can still afford an ipod, cellphone, and/or a TV, we live in luxury.
The "organic" food nonsense is completely unsustainable too (and bad for the environment to boot).
I agree with you about the "Green" stuff, and I also agree that a lot of "organic" produce falls into the same category of "trend-of-the-day" capitalist opportunism, but could you please clarify this? Why exactly is organic food (in and of itself) unsustainable and bad for the environment?
Glad someone is more optimistic about this than I am. I don't have that much faith in technology.
Because of science and technology we have reliable, clean drinking water and lifespans have doubled in 100 years. It's also because of science and technology that, with the exception of world war 1 and 2, the western world has completely done away with famine. When you read about some poor africans or whoever that don't have clean water or whatever, it's because they dont have the technology we do.
the western lifestyle is completely sustainable... for a smaller population,
Again, you're making assumptions based on current technologies.
Let me clarify. I don't have anything against technology. More specifically, I am not confident that technology is going to continue to develop at the pace that it has, and not confident that it will develop quickly enough or completely enough to solve all of the problems that are bearing down on us. It might. But then again, it might not. I'm not willing to bet on it. Just because technology has been progressing rapidly for a few centuries doesn't mean that it will continue to do so. And even if it does, I am not at all confident in our ability as humans to properly handle such technology and stay well-adjusted, capable people able to keep technological progress moving forward. We might. But then again, we might not... I submit the amount of time wasted on Facebook (and forums like this) as evidence of the latter.
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More specifically, I am not confident that technology is going to continue to develop at the pace that it has, and not confident that it will develop quickly enough or completely enough to solve all of the problems that are bearing down on us. It might. But then again, it might not. I'm not willing to bet on it.
I've heard this kind of arguement before, though mostly from peak oil doomsayers. Contrary to popular belief, the rate of technological advance isn't slowing down or even staying the same, it's increasing. While it is true that specific technologies do plateau after short bursts of activity, the overall rate still goes up exponentially because other breakthrough techs come along.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/PPTMASSuseInventionsLogPRINT.jpg)
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I agree with you about the "Green" stuff, and I also agree that a lot of "organic" produce falls into the same category of "trend-of-the-day" capitalist opportunism, but could you please clarify this? Why exactly is organic food (in and of itself) unsustainable and bad for the environment?
In a world where people die from lack of food, a system like organic farming which produces less food per acre than more industrialised systems is obviously going to be unsustainable.
Ironically the exact same sort of person who pushes organic food would be horrified if they ever realised that the only way the 3rd world can have organic food (briefly) would be to cut down all the rainforest to grow food. And we all know why that isn't sustainable.
There are a lot more reasons it's bad for the environment but the simple fact that it needs more land than other methods should show why it isn't a luxury we can afford if we are talking about running out of resources.
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its not so much about technology as it is about infrastructure. things like communications (phone, radio, tv, internet), energy(electricity, fuel), water, sanitation (sewage/garbage), transportation (roads, bridges, airports, seaports, trains) and the like that are required for developing countries to be developed. technology only determines what can be done with the infrastructure. the infrastructure is what brings the resources to the people, and without it no level of technology will improve the quality of life. technology might let you make better use of the infrastructure but its not a replacement in most cases.
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And the 3rd world is too busy killing each other for the rest of us to go in and provide them an infrastructure.
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I just don't see so many people changing there habits so dramatically in such a short time.
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And the 3rd world is too busy killing each other for the rest of us to go in and provide them an infrastructure.
Really? That's odd, I thought we were too busy killing them.
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Well they seemed to have got the job done themselves well enough in places like Darfur.
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And the 3rd world is too busy killing each other for the rest of us to go in and provide them an infrastructure.
Really? That's odd, I thought we were too busy killing them.
No. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_United_Front)
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And the 3rd world is too busy killing each other for the rest of us to go in and provide them an infrastructure.
Really? That's odd, I thought we were too busy killing them.
No. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_United_Front)
On the grand scale of things, not that significant.
Bear in mind I bludgeoned my way through enough years of high school and college Model UN to have a great idea of exactly how ****ed up the third world is and how it got that way. What's fascinating is exactly how culpable European colonialism was in creating most of these awful situations.
You also have not the slightest sense of humor.
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You also have not the slightest sense of humor.
Well to be fair Battuta,
A) This is the internet.
B) Smileys exist for a reason. :P
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You also have not the slightest sense of humor.
Well to be fair Battuta,
A) This is the internet.
B) Smileys exist for a reason. :P
he rides across the nation
the thoroughbred of sin
he got the application
that you just sent in
it needs evaluation
so let the games begin
a heinous crime, a show of force
a murder would be nice of course
bad horse
bad horse
bad horse
he’s bad
the Evil League of Evil
is watching so beware
the grade that you receive
will be your last we swear
so make the Bad Horse gleeful
or he’ll make you his mare...
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Dude, no-one quotes Doctor Horrible seriously. :P
Your previous statement on the other hand could quite easily have been interpreted as serious. A fact you must be aware of since two of us here ended up doing so, and so I'll leave you to it.
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You also have not the slightest sense of humor.
Well to be fair Battuta,
A) This is the internet.
B) Smileys exist for a reason. :P
he rides across the nation
the thoroughbred of sin
he got the application
that you just sent in
it needs evaluation
so let the games begin
a heinous crime, a show of force
a murder would be nice of course
bad horse
bad horse
bad horse
he’s bad
the Evil League of Evil
is watching so beware
the grade that you receive
will be your last we swear
so make the Bad Horse gleeful
or he’ll make you his mare...
(http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/style_emoticons/Pook/wub.gif)
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And the 3rd world is too busy killing each other for the rest of us to go in and provide them an infrastructure.
Really? That's odd, I thought we were too busy killing them.
No. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_United_Front)
On the grand scale of things, not that significant.
Bear in mind I bludgeoned my way through enough years of high school and college Model UN to have a great idea of exactly how ****ed up the third world is and how it got that way. What's fascinating is exactly how culpable European colonialism was in creating most of these awful situations.
You also have not the slightest sense of humor.
Unlike you I've actually lived in the third world as well as reading a great deal about its history.
And really, it's hard to tell when you're joking without :)'s
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(http://www.qwantz.com/fanart/DinoComicInternetSerious.png)
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And the 3rd world is too busy killing each other for the rest of us to go in and provide them an infrastructure.
Really? That's odd, I thought we were too busy killing them.
No. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_United_Front)
On the grand scale of things, not that significant.
Bear in mind I bludgeoned my way through enough years of high school and college Model UN to have a great idea of exactly how ****ed up the third world is and how it got that way. What's fascinating is exactly how culpable European colonialism was in creating most of these awful situations.
You also have not the slightest sense of humor.
Unlike you I've actually lived in the third world as well as reading a great deal about its history.
And really, it's hard to tell when you're joking without :)'s
He saw the operation
you tried to pull today
but your humiliation
means he still votes "neigh"!
And now assassination
is just the only way.
There will be blood,
it might be yours.
So go kill someone.
Signed, Bad Horse.
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And the 3rd world is too busy killing each other for the rest of us to go in and provide them an infrastructure.
Really? That's odd, I thought we were too busy killing them.
No. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_United_Front)
On the grand scale of things, not that significant.
Bear in mind I bludgeoned my way through enough years of high school and college Model UN to have a great idea of exactly how ****ed up the third world is and how it got that way. What's fascinating is exactly how culpable European colonialism was in creating most of these awful situations.
You also have not the slightest sense of humor.
Unlike you I've actually lived in the third world as well as reading a great deal about its history.
And really, it's hard to tell when you're joking without :)'s
I doubt you live in Sierra Leone. Watch out for generalizations - wherever the **** you live is probably not representative of the entire Third World.
You don't make a great argument when you link to a Wikipedia page describing a war that's killed 200,000 people in eleven years when we're just wrapping up a pair of wars that have killed (conservatively) 100,000 people or so in a similar timeframe - though some estimates say many more.
There are many problems with the Third World, but you need to resist the urge to simplify them to point causes. The fallout of the colonial era is still being played out, and like most bad things it's a very complex problem with a lot of self-perpetuating feedback.
I got into college on the strength of a paper I wrote for the US Institute of Peace, performing a differential analysis of what made Third World nations successful in the modern era. Colonial history was one of the most critical determinants.
Then of course there's the absurdity of saying the Third World is busy killing itself when violent conflict is at such a low.
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You're the one who generalized about "the third world and it's problems", meaning all of it. What I gave was just one small example, that is true, but it is an example amoung many others. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda_massacre) Since independence, each time there was a massacre, war, or genocide in Africa, it was always Africans on the other side of the machete or the AK. Should people not be held in account for what they do? We're not mindless animals, unlike other animal species we have the ability to think for ourselves and make decisions for ourselves.
Much of what is happening now in Africa is a continuation of what had been happening long before the colonizers showed up. They weren't sitting around the campfire singing kumbaya, they were having their own empires, slavetrades, and brutal, viscious wars. While certainly the Europeans did have a big hand in the current day mess, to pin the blame squarely on them while ignoring the other side of the equation really is absurd, not to mention somewhat racist.
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You're the one who generalized about "the third world and it's problems", meaning all of it. What I gave was just one small example, that is true, but it is an example amoung many others. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda_massacre) Since independence, each time there was a massacre, war, or genocide in Africa, it was always Africans on the other side of the machete or the AK.
Because they happened in Africa.
Should people not be held in account for what they do? We're not mindless animals, unlike other animal species we have the ability to think for ourselves and make decisions for ourselves.
Like any other animal, people are biological machines. Our machinery is just very complex and extends into the sociopolitical realm. What comes before determines what comes after, and in the case of Africa, the damage done by colonialism was so bad that all subsequent problems must subsequently be seen as causally connected.
Your belief in free will is admirable and has utility, but in fact people are mostly shaped by the environment around them, and nations are only aggregates of people. Holding Africans responsible for Africa is as ridiculous as holding Native Americans responsible for their current state.
Much of what is happening now in Africa is a continuation of what had been happening long beforethe colonizers showed up. They weren't sitting around the campfire singing kumbaya, they were having their own empires, slavetrades, and brutal, viscious wars. While certainly the Europeans did have a big hand in the current day mess, to pin the blame squarely on them while ignoring the other side of the equation really is absurd, not to mention somewhat racist.
In Koshworld everything is done in bright primary colors and arguments are either FOR ME or AGAINST ME!
Go reread my previous posts before Bad Horse mounts you.
I wonder if by 'viscious' you mean 'brutal and unpleasant' or 'very thick'. It's so tantalizingly ambiguous.
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this post accidentally overwritten by battuta
Holding Africans responsible for Africa is as ridiculous as holding Native Americans responsible for their current state.
So the African population was devestated to a tiny tiny fraction of what it was and the remainder were forced to relocate thousands and thousands of miles away to the other side of the continent?
No; they were economically exploited and their leadership and social structures were systematically dismantled. In both cases their current situation is significantly determined by actions taken against them by outside parties.
So based on your explanation, Ethiopia, a nation which except for a 9 year occupation under fascist Italy avoided being colonized, should be a modern, fairly prosperous state. Instead it's one of the poorest nations on Earth thanks to civil war, bad leadership, and wars with its neighbors. This is sounding a lot like most of the African nations that actually were colonized, yet it was not colonized. Please explain this discrepency.
That's actually not what my explanation predicts at all. It also neglects the role of systemic failure caused by colonization. Again, attempting to find simple case-by-case black and white explanations for things is not going to get you very far.
In Battutaworld it's commonplace and perfectly acceptable to launch personal attacks on people because they dont agree with you.
It's not that you don't agree with me, it's that your cognitive methodology is broken. You are insufficiently sensitive to the complexity of the global system.
If you want to know why the Third World is the way it is, you're going to have to work. One very well-substantiated, though not universally accepted, explanation is proposed in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel.
In general, you can strive to search for the weaknesses in your own thought; constantly fight your own heuristic biases by assuming you are wrong and assuming other positions. It helps self-check for blind spots. You won't win - nobody can - but you'll lose less.
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:shaking:
I edited your post instead of replying to it!
Now I'm not sure what to do.
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So let's look at the state of the world. There are nearly 7 billion people. The world can scarcely handle what we have now. In 50 years it will double. The world will not be able to handle that, it is simply too many people. The growth rate has not diminished much seance the end of the black death, it did peak at about twice it's current level shortly after WW2, but the trend is clear that the population doubles every 50 years. There is only a limited amount of resources and it would take 20 years for any actual change in population growth to have any effect on the related growth of resource consumption. most of these resources are limited in total volume, that is when they run out they will be gone unilaterally reducing your own population growth will only provide those who do not with the resources you didn't consume, so the ones who act most responsibly will be naturally selected against.
What will the world be like in 50 years?
If the Earth's filled with humans it can't support, colonize (and terraform) Mars. ;)
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So let's look at the state of the world. There are nearly 7 billion people. The world can scarcely handle what we have now. In 50 years it will double. The world will not be able to handle that, it is simply too many people. The growth rate has not diminished much seance the end of the black death, it did peak at about twice it's current level shortly after WW2, but the trend is clear that the population doubles every 50 years. There is only a limited amount of resources and it would take 20 years for any actual change in population growth to have any effect on the related growth of resource consumption. most of these resources are limited in total volume, that is when they run out they will be gone unilaterally reducing your own population growth will only provide those who do not with the resources you didn't consume, so the ones who act most responsibly will be naturally selected against.
What will the world be like in 50 years?
If the Earth's filled with humans it can't support, colonize (and terraform) Mars. ;)
The problem is that we don't have the ability to create a self-supporting ecosystem on even the smallest level, nor the ability to move people to Mars in any reasonable numbers. And we probably won't for at least a hundred years, possibly more.
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:shaking:
I edited your post instead of replying to it!
Now I'm not sure what to do.
OPPRESSION! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76WQzVJ434)
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The problem is that we don't have the ability to create a self-supporting ecosystem on even the smallest level, nor the ability to move people to Mars in any reasonable numbers. And we probably won't for at least a hundred years, possibly more.
That, and it would be oh-so-much cheaper to deal with our **** on our own planet, instead of spending an insane amount of money to **** up another.
*Question about "organic" foods*
Karajorma answered you already more than adequately, but to expand on that, organic foods are bad for the environment because they propagate disease. Forget for a second that an organic crop takes double the land for half the yield; even without that annoying [for the organic hype-types] fact, huge tracts of artificially seeded plants disrupting the ecosystem in place without the appropriate defenses to survive there are an invitation for mass disease and famine.
All plants have natural defenses against disease and predation, and one of those is synergistic growth - most natural ecosystems have dozens of plant species with supporting bacteria, fungi, and insect populations that sustain them. Artificially-seeded crop plants do not. For practical reason, we have to plant these in huge swaths. Organic farmers have to plant even larger swaths to meet the same yield. Once a disease can gain a foothold in an unprotected crop, it can wipe out the entire field - and the neighbouring field, and it's neighbours. Until the invention of pesticides, this is exactly what happened, leading to a number of notable famines around the globe. One of the more famous ones is the Irish potato famine, and it is a particularly good example because of the social, political, and migratory upheaval it caused. Wars have started over this - big ones, with lasting consequences.
Pesticide use is much like vaccination - for large populations, it's necessary. While more natural pesticides are preferred, and it is better to trade some efficacy for lesser toxicity, they are still a necessity for commercial growth of food. Organic farming is capable of supporting only a much smaller population - under a billion, if that.
This is not to say that I think personal growth of foodstuffs without pesticides is a bad idea - far from it. If everyone made use of yard, roof, deck, porsh, etc space to grow some sustenance plants and did so without pesticides and herbicides, it would do us all a world of good.
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It's like you people never heard of wars and disease.
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Pesticide use is much like vaccination - for large populations, it's necessary. While more natural pesticides are preferred, and it is better to trade some efficacy for lesser toxicity, they are still a necessity for commercial growth of food.
Thing is, there have been very few studies on the toxicity of natural pesticides. Everyone just assumes that cause they are from a natural source they must be safer. It's an absolutely retarded idea. There are plenty of toxic chemicals in nature and whenever someone suggests that the natural ones are better simply because they are natural I'm tempted to ask them if they were given the choice would they prefer to be struck by lightning rather than get an electric shock from a plug socket because it's natural. :p
Perhaps I should invite those people to drink some of my natural belladonna & foxglove tea. :p
Simple fact is that we have no idea if the pesticides used in organic farming are less toxic than the conventional ones, they could be more toxic, they could be worse for the environment (the fact that they are less effective and therefore used in greater quantities points to that possibility). What little research has been carried out has shown they are just as toxic as the synthetic ones. And even if the chemicals themselves are safe who knows what impurities are also in the organic pesticides?
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Thing is, if there's not enough food then people will starve and die, Nature doesn't cut us a special deal in that respect. We laughably do our bit for the environment, like those biodegradable bags, that are actually the cause of large swathes of rainforest being cut down in order to grow the material they are made from etc, but the truth is, even things like GM crops etc will not be able to keep pace with our rate of growth.
Our best bet is, always has been, and probably will always remain expansion, that's why I always hold that one of the stupidest things a Government to do is to cut funding to the Space Program because of financial/resource problems, Earth is a closed system, no matter how much we recycle, and we need to open that system up, there are, quite literally, metal mountains and hydrocarbon oceans out there if we can get to them, and the opportunities for Terraforming, particularly places like Mars, could be our only real way out of the problem we are in, at least one that doesn't involve mass starvation, or Logans-Run style Euthenasia.
I don't think mankind is on the brink of destruction or anything, but there's a lot of conceptual deadweight we've dragged with us through the centuries, there's still a distrust of science above and beyond our inherent fear of change, and, more dangerously, there's an apocolyptic tendency to humanity that means you get groups like the '2012'ers or the 'Rapture Ready', who have already convinced themselves we're already into injury time and the whistle is about to blow. It's people like this, who think some kind of third party is going to come along and either fix or destroy everything that leads to us sitting on our hands when we should be taking action.
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Life will go on.
A couple of things can happen (that I can think about now):
1)
Poor people die because of the lack of resources.
2)
Population grow stalls naturally (already happening in the old continent).
3)
Necessity opens the way for new technologies to be developed, which will solve these problems (until we stumble upon new ones)
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Life will go on.
A couple of things can happen (that I can think about now):
1)
Poor people die because of the lack proper utilization of resources due to some bull**** or another.
2)
Population grow stalls naturally (already happening in the old continent).
This is mainly due to the countries of that continent slipping into decadence.(See the topic that goober posted that no one seems interested in posting in.
3)
Necessity opens the way for new technologies to be developed, which will solve these problems (until we stumble upon new ones)
Fixed for correctness.
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I take issue with your correction to the second point. Declining population growth rates has nothing to do with decadence, and more to do with how kids are a financial liablity rather than an advantage in a modern developed country. Correlation != causation.
That, and people wanting to have less kids than the replacement isn't decadence.
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I concur with Scotty. If anything, slipping population growth is due to maturation into excellence - societies understand that it's better to have smaller numbers of highly skilled, well-cared-for individuals than a swarm of expendable babies with a high mortality rate.
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[....] a swarm of expendable babies with a high mortality rate.
I'm going to make this game, now. :lol:
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[...] a swarm of expendable babies with a high mortality rate.
Zerg: High mortality rates by our swarms of expendable babies, and we win.
OM NOM NOM NOM
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[...] a swarm of expendable babies with a high mortality rate.
Zerg: High mortality rates by our swarms of expendable babies, and we win.
OM NOM NOM NOM
Actually you really have to be careful not to spend too many zerglings. It's more of a matter of getting a critical mass than of attrition.