I call Jupiter!
 

You might want to figure out where you're going to go.

Stephen Hawking has a few words to say about our planet and our genetic code.

"Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million.

Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space."

Pretty grim stuff but also fascinating.
What do you think will happen?

I think tw will get his way and man will die-off on Earth. Is that baiting?

Hawking is ill-informed, and speaking outside of his area of expertise.

As he is wont to do.


:eyebrow:


Listen, Tony Soprano didn't want to believe it, either, but everything comes to an end.

Everything.

Hopefully, all the selfish agressive people will kill each other off, leaving those able to cooperate to inhabit the Earth. We just have to stop them from reproducing.

I'm pretty sure cultural stagnation with a resultant collapse of civilization is what you'd get if everyone were "cooperative". No risks would be taken and no progress would be made. We'd have a nice little world for bureaucrats and government approved academics. Everyone else would be subjected to failing prospects and falling incomes, much like we're getting now with the corporate government complex, but with more hopelessness.

But what has progress really achieved?
The poor still starve, still die, still suffer from diseases that can be cured with a few pennies.

It's just that they happen in different countries now, or at least out of sight.

Our world has progressed.
That's all.
And even that is shaky. Europe is on the verge of economic collapse.
Middle class/ professional Greeks are finding it hard to meet utility bills/ taxes/ food bills.
And when I say hard, I mean literally having NO money even for essentials, not "Christmas is a bit smaller this year"

Italy seems to be heading the same way.

The construction industry in Ireland has stagnated meaning that "children" are living at home (with their wives or husbands and children) into their thirties.

My Grandad would have understood this world.
Where you raised animals for slaughter in an urban environment.
Where you lived with family, even after your first child.
Where you left school early to work for your family and turned over the whole of your wages just to keep the rentman from the door. And hid when he came. And did a moonlight flit when it became impossible to hide any more.

There was no NHS when Grandad had whooping cough as a child.
His mother was advised by the kindly (but expensive) doctor to take him to the coast for sea air. Might as well have suggested he went to the moon.
Instead Nanny Doyle loaded up the old pram with assorted children and took them to Tower Bridge.
The Thames is a tidal river. They took deep breaths.
It was the best she could do.
She had five children that I know of - you didn't talk about miscarriages in those days. They all lived into their eighties and two are still going.

So it would be as though everyone were stoned, but sad?

That, and that nothing could work. That woman talking to John Reed in Ten Days That Shook The World had it right: "Nothing works!" she said.

In this regard, I think our current civilisation is screwed.

As Hawkings points out, our impact on this planet is increasing rapidly. Each year, the earth's natural systems produce a certain amount of "bounty" - goods that can be gathered without harming the productive system. Each year we exceed that amount, currently by about 30 to 40%. We make it up by nibbling at the biological capital, which gets us through this year but makes future bounties smaller. Like many other civilisations before us, we can keep doing this until the final crash when there is no more bio-capital to nibble.

There is no other habitable planet in our solar system. "Terraforming" Mars would take an enormous amount of effort and resources, which would be better spent preserving Earth. Indeed, making Mars into a second-rate copy of Earth would probably exhaust Earth entirely.

Other star systems are so far away they cannot be reached in less than many lifetimes by any technology we currently belive to be possible, let alone possess.

IMHO, the only hope for our civilisation is to transfer it to non-human technology. That *could* go and exist on Mars, or make the trek through deep space. Our ideas might spread through the galaxy, but our bodies won't.

A basic tenet of ecology is "carrying capacity." This is the maximum population of any given species which can be sustained by the ecosystem in which it resides. Malthus predicted it back in the 1700's. Human population growth is rapidly reaching the point where the planet's resources can no longer sustain it - if it hasn't been surpassed already.

In addition, the "green revolution" has come at the expense of loss of much diversity in our grain crops. Mega-agriculture plants zillions of acres of the same mono-species which often can't even reproduce themselves using the seeds from the harvest. You have to buy special seed grains from big ag. This is nice for them, but a loss of genetic diversity will sooner or later prove fatal. Let a single plant virus mutate (which viruses do all the time) get loose in those fields, and everything will go because our crops have lost the benefit of what is called "hybrid vigor."

Ultimately the problem of carrying capacity and/or loss of genetic diversity in our grain crops will cause a major human population crash. It's been observed time after time with other different organisms and nature is not going to do us any special favors just because we think we're such a wonderful species - especially when we working against nature and know this, but continue to do it anyway.

But who knows? Maybe the remaining members of our species will evolve into a much more fit and adaptable homo common sensus in another 2 million years from now. Members of the new species will regard us the way we now do the neanderthals.

In all of recorded human history, armageddon is always predicted and has never happened.

Didn't I call you hand-wringers out in the 7 billion people thread? Your win-loss record is like 0 and infinity.

Can't you see what's right before your eyes? The agricultural history of the last century includes such massive gains that poor people are now obese!

Depends on your definition UT. Just because the human race isn't wiped out by an event doesn't mean it won't extremely hurt the global society.

If you look at the last 5000 years there is a trend of empires expanding to their limits, then collapsing and taking down all the societies around them with them. Another society, usually a backwards society at the time, then slowly takes over the niche of the old power and the pattern continues.

Seriously, though, cooperation does not mean the absence of aggression and selfishness, just a willingness to strive for a win/win solution.

YET!:rolleyes:

That's a scary and strangely alluring angle.

Our robot-progeny. Our electric, self aware children of the mind. Able to switch to stasis mode for long inter or intra stellar voyages.

Now, if we were to program them to go and find us a new home, carrying with them cryogenic-ally preserved genetic materials with which to recreate us.

and of course we would need other robots to raise us and teach us what we taught them.

lets do it!

How do you know?

We don't know.. maybe the dinosaurs were sentient?

Maybe Atlantis was real?

Maybe there was a civilization so powerful that it brought us here, having fled from a distant Armageddon and crash landed, bred out the indigenous ape men (missing link, cave drawings of astronauts, etc) and forgot itself.

They are coming back to get me. Dec 24th.

I doubt any of you are in on it, but if you are I'll see you there.

Oh come on, UT! Now you're just being disingenuous. You can't compare poor people in a wealthy country like the US with people in the third world suffering from famine.

Would you call these African famine victims "obese"? You're comparing apples and oranges. :eyebrow:

PH, let's call it a decimation of human existence: a reduction by a tenth.

Those children existed during the Malthusian predictions and continue to exist now that the predictions are generally considered wrong.

That's oh for infinity+1, play again?

If I've told you once, I've told you an infinite number of times: don't exagerate!

You bet!

Just because you don't see such suffering and deaths from lack of food or severe malnutrition happening in Philly doesn't mean there isn't any problem.

We're talking about your outdated and generally considered wrong notion of ecological fairy tales about the world being unable to produce enough food

We're not talking about the inability of Africa to govern itself to the point where it can apply the basic agricultural technologies that improve such production.

Oh? Someone has figured out how African nations can govern themselves out of drought? (Drought being a major factor in the most recent famine in Somalia). :rolleyes:

Never mind.

Sam, check over the theory that in Africa famines only occur through some human intervention, perhaps well intentioned but as often malicious, and would not occur absent these interventions. There are those students of famines who figure this is why there are famines in the first place. Once a drought happens. The problem really springs from resource misallocations (viz. & e.g., corruption, thievery and so forth) during times of relative plenty in these pocket-handkerchief economies.

The United States, for an example of clearly doing something differently, has droughts and crop failures all the time. Localized. You don't see American skeletons shuffling down the Interstates as refugees trying to get away. You've never seen it in American history, period. Might have something to do with doing capitalism and free markets and other much-abused notions.

Do you mean to say that The United States had a decade of crippling poverty, breadlines, homelessness, chronic unemployment, malnutrition, mass migration of families, shanty-towns and a large percentage of people did not starve to death during the great depression? A quick note about how the U.S. handled the resource allocation during this time of great suffering. In September of 1934 over 6 million young pigs were slaughtered to stabilize prices, with most of the meat going to waste. Capitalism and free markets at it's finest for sure.

I love the U.S. and think it is important that we are honest about our past. Capitalism and free markets are definite components of a free society. But, if profit margin is the only moral compass then tragedies like the slaughter of 6 million pigs and wasting the meat during this countries worst drought will happen, and of course it's their own fault because this disaster was caused by human intervention and deserves no efforts on our part intervene.

Now, the native populations of the Continental U.S. estimated at between 5 and 10 million people in the 1500's was reduced to apprx. 250,000 in the territory of the United States at the end of the 19th century. Most died of disease and famine. But, they weren't Americans and probably don't count. They have a different history then American history.

Another truly remarkable statement that I don't think you want to hang your hat on... !

Try Google Images for just one word: "Okies"

Who knows, if you were born in Calif, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, etc.
these working people (farmers, etc) might be your ancestors just 3 generations back.
.

Over 12 million Americans died of starvation during the dust bowl/ Great Depression. As others here have stated, your understanding of American History (among other things) leaves something to be desired.

Also, you are misrepresenting what I posted. I never said that famines occur because of "human intervention". I believe that was UT's thesis, not mine.

Certainly, famine in Africa is a complex subject with many over-lapping factors. Human over population and climate change are important triggers to famine. And you really can't compare the US to Africa in that regard. The population density in Africa is much greater than it is here for one thing.

Unlike the US population, the population of Africa still tends to make a living from farming (or tries to). African farms tend to be extremely small and over-grazed, as well as over farmed. Too many grazing animals strip large areas of land of its vegetation, making it susceptible to wind erosion and flooding. The nutrients that each crop takes from the soil are not replaced due to lack of fertilizers and the inability to allow fields to lie fallow once a harvest has come in. I could write a book on this, but there are already ones out there far better written than anything I might attempt. Jared Diamond's "Collapse" is an excellent introduction to the subject.

Frankly, I am amazed that both you and UT are both touting the intervention of government. Roosevelt helped rise the US out of the Great Depression by increasing taxes on the wealthy, creating far reaching new social programs - like social security, and instituting the great public works projects of the time like the Hoover Dam.

In our current political atmosphere, Conservatives would rather roast in hell for eternity before raising taxes on the wealthy by so much as a penny. The Right wants to curtail or end as many social programs as possible and actually advocate leaving the less fortunate to die from hunger on the streets of our cities.

Far from rescuing us from any potential environmental disaster, conservatives would call upon social Darwinism to take care of the problem. Admit it guys. You can't have it both ways.

But in the end it was World War II that tipped the balance in lifting America out of depression.
No disrespect to FDR - he is one of my politcal heroes.

How come wars used to help the economy and now they hurt it?

Because we don't make all our own weapons any more?

Ummmm...maybe for business profits,
but "tipped" may not be the best word
regarding unemployment.

US Depression: 1929
US Elected FDR: 1933
US entered WW II: 1944

US Unemployment Rate: 1932 - 23.6% (12.8 million unemployed)
US Unemployment Rate: 1938 - 19.1%
US Unemployment Rate: 1940 - 14.6%

Good point.
I wasn't referring to America entering WWII. I always understood that the US benefitted when they were a neutral manufacturing country.

BUT I wasn't aware of the above figures and am happy to stand at least partially corrected.

Because Americans paid for the war through taxation.

Remember, Bush did not budget for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He submitted "emergency spending bills" and the cost was added to the national debt.

Africa pop. density: = 65 people per square mile
USA pop. density = 76 people per square mile

My bad. I stated "you really can't compare the US to Africa" and then proceeded to do so. Africa is a continent. The USA, of course is a country.

Population densities of some COUNTRIES in Africa:

Rwanda 984/sq mile
Burundi 772/sq mile
Nigeria 433/ sq mile

DC 9857/sq mi
New Jersey 1196/sq mi
Rhode Island 1018/sq mi
Massachusetts 839/sq mi
Connecticut 738/sq mi
Maryland 595/sq mi
Delaware 461/sq mi

Just noting that we disagree here. I don't have time (and didn't when the population thread was active) to discuss properly. Here is the short version:

1. Well, not "armageddon" but overpopulation leading to overconsumption causing ecological collapse leading to economic collapse leading to population crash and cultural regression.

It isn't just about population, but population times ecological impact per person. Economic activity is a pretty good proxy for ecological impact, and that is also rushing upwards. I mentioned elsewhere that 25% of ALL the economic activity in human history has taken place in the last ten years.

2. never happened ... not true. Jared Diamond (biologist turned historian) has a book called Collapse in which he carefully documents and analyses over a dozen (I think it was 17) human civilizations which have collapsed in exactly this way. Easter Island was the most obvious example, but there were others in the American South-west, Africa, other island nations, etc. All of them followed the pattern I describe in 1; and all of them kept growing and seeming fine right up until the collapse.

Each ecosystem (including the earth) has a certain amount of bio-capital and can produce a certain amount of bio-interest each year. So long as we live off the interest, all good. And yes, our clever food production CAN extract more interest without damaging the capital; but that isn't the only thing happening. Every year we exceed the bio-interest and nibble at the capital.

Our current appearance of prosperity is an illusion maintained by nibbling at the capital. The end comes suddenly and with only vague warnings that are easy to miss or deny.

If you disagree, try to buy some Atlantic cod or Atlantic tuna. These have been so overfished as to be commercially extinct. There are plenty of other fish stocks like them and more going that way. Same for forest resources, water resources, soil nutrients. Then add in the toxic pollution, the debt problem, oil supply problem, the demographic bulge problem and any others you feel like. (This is why I'm not too worried about climate change. I think it is real and will be bad, but we've got other much more urgent threats than that.)

3. poor people obese.

Has already been answered, but even if it were true, is entirely consistent with the situation described in 2. above.

BUT!
You are right in that it is possible that continued scientific progress will give us the means to deal with all of this crap. Lord I hope so. This requires that we make these breakthroughs before we collapse, and that we don't bollocks the place up irreparably in doing so. So for these reasons I have not given up hope, and also believe it is worthwhile trying to be gentle with the Earth to stretch out the time we have to get our act together.

Remember, this was the SHORT answer. :D I'm trying to conserve bits.

So the best example is 15,000 people with almost no technology, over-farming an island of only 80 square miles, that they could not leave because of its extreme isolation, between 1650 and 1722 before market economies were invented.


we'll be fine.




that's my short reply and i'm sticking to it

Finite isolated island or finite isolated planet, finite is finite. Isolated is isolated.

Yeah, whatever. :D

So, how about those [sporting team]?


(although ... notice that the guy with the high job security is all gloomy and pessimistic about the future, and the guy trying to create a small business in difficult times is all cheery and optimistic. :lol: carry on.)

States and a city (they may call DC a "district," but its a city all the same) within a country against entire countries. We could keep playing this game endlessly. I was in error comparing the entire vast continent of Africa to the country of the United States. I've admitted that, already. :p:

"Everything comes to an end, Tony!"

- Carmella Soprano.

:lol:

1944?

Ooooops... give or take 3 years. :o

I blame the metric system.

This is a non-sequitur. Fill a glass with water. It never overflows... Until it does.

What type of argument is,
It was predicted, therefore it will happen.

I think that is "begging the question" but I am not sure.

Well, it depends on who is making the predictions. A born again may predict that the rapture is coming next week. I am not going to lose any sleep over that prediction.

An international group of scientists who have spent years studying the phenomenon of climate change and have run all the numbers and statistics AND all these scientists agree - that's when I become concerned. Besides global warming is already happening. The glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are melting at an alarming pace. Desertification is destroying millions of acres of what was once good grazing or agricultural lands. These things are not predictions. You can go and see them for yourself if you are so inclined.