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Thread: OT: Earth is a finite space

  1. #1
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    OT: Earth is a finite space

    and we keep filling it up with people since it's not PC to tell people what to do with there gamete's. Although I think China and Japan may have figured this one out.

    anyway...my pondering is thus:

    we, as humans occupying this finite space, actually need wars and famine and pestilance to check out population since we're too stupid to do it ourselves.

    what would the world's population be if all the millions of people who have been killed in all the wars and black death's and genocides had lived to reproduce?

    the world population grows by 75 million people every year.

    is it any wonder that we are losing species of animals every year?

    geez, we need to be killing 75 million people a year just to stabalize.

    and if this is a wrong way of thinking then what is a right way?

    eventually, probably in the not too distant future, we'll eat ourselves out of existence anyway.

    my best answer is to pull the cork on the space program and open it up to commercial interests and get some of us of this friggin planet.
    "George never did wake up. And, even all that talking didn't make death any easier...at least not for us. Maybe, in the end, all you can really hope for is that your last thought is a nice one...even if it's just about the taste of a nice cold beer."

    "If you find the right balance between desperation and fear you can make people believe anything"

    "Is enlightenment even possible? Or, did I drive by it like a missed exit?"

    It's simpler than you think.

    I could be completely wrong"

  2. #2
    You don't have to kill people....just use condoms
    Go Surf!
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  3. #3
    I wouldn't worry about us seeing the day that we over populate this planet. I would worry about the war that is bound to happen that will bring the population back to small numbers. All it will take is one "good" war or unexpected disease, and the so called problem is solved. Should the day come that we have actually over populated without a single war, resources will be so short that war is certain. While you are correct in being alarmed at our birth rates, you are underestimating out abilities to kill ourselves off at a much faster rate. The population numbers may be climbing, but war technology and the spread of untreatable disease is right there with it.

  4. #4
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    I think if I really applied myself, I could probably kill a million people this year, but no promises. That leaves 74 million for you guys to deal with.

    <rant>
    Commercialization of space is a great idea, but it will take decades to develop and implement, and then more decades to actually get people who are worthy of the responsibility of colonization to buy that it's a good idea to leave thier swimmin pools and movie stars and go live in a little plastic bubble for the rest of thier lives so that they can further the healthy development of humankind by testing and building and engineering a new civilization in an uncharted frontier.

    For the record, sign me up. I can be packed and ready in half an hour.

    Then during those decades we're still reproducing like ****roaches down here and sucking up available resources. We need a more immediate solution and limiting the number of children families can have (a la china) is, I believe, the wisest and most humane one.

    Additionally, I find it distressing that people are spending thousands of dollars on fertility drugs and winding up with multiple babies instead of simply adopting an existing child that needs a loving home.
    </rant>
    The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on the list.

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  5. #5
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    Surfer, 90% of the worlds population lives in less-developed countries, and they can't afford condoms or other kinds of prevention.
    Thats one of the reasons behind the population-boom & AIDS.

  6. #6
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    Reading Malthus again, Oso?
    -Thos. Zinn

    "Children, never fuss or fret
    Nor let unreason'd tempers rise
    Your little hands were never meant
    To pluck out one anothers eyes"
    -McGuffey's Reader

    “We are at a crossroads. One path leads to despair and the other to total extinction. I pray I have the wisdom to choose wisely.”


    ستّة أيّام يا كلب

  7. #7
    Originally posted by chen zhen
    Surfer, 90% of the worlds population lives in less-developed countries, and they can't afford condoms or other kinds of prevention.
    Thats one of the reasons behind the population-boom & AIDS.
    O yea hahaha
    Go Surf!
    Train hard and work hard to gain mastery.
    Do not train and you gain nothing.
    Spread good karma!!! Because if you dont, you get hit by bad karma!!!
    Then you will step in dog crap!!!=)
    Karate's better!!!

  8. #8

    Re: OT: Earth is a finite space

    Originally posted by Oso
    my best answer is to pull the cork on the space program and open it up to commercial interests and get some of us of this friggin planet.
    I've always been highly dubious of the relative rewards of the space program. An ocean program would yield significant rewards far sooner, be far more economically efficient, and would translate directly into a more efficient space program upon it's culmination. Aiming for Mars when we haven't dipped our foot in the majority of our own planet seems a little misguided.

    Another excellent answer would be to address population distribution rather than population itself. The earth as a whole, even restricting ourselves to habitable landmass, is far from being overpopulated - it's just that the population we have is poorly distributed. Again, rather than aiming for Mars, we should aim for information, energy, and good distribution to allow for a more distributed mode of living.

  9. #9
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    Read an interesting study recently:

    If China became like the USA and Japan, fully industrialised and so on that would gripple the world. Economies would tumble and so on.

    Problem is not just over-population, even if we stabilise population at the current levels, the earth couldn't support everybody living a first world standard.

    Imagine every poor person in the world driving a car and the ensuing pollution shortage of fuel and other resources.
    That is if we could build said cars. roads, etc.

    Fresh Water levels are dropping across the world, most of the currently available fresh water has been so polluted that it is unfit for human consumption and often can't even be used for industrial purpose without treatment.
    The great lakes in the USA are such an example.

    Look at the middle est where Israel and Palestine already started to fight over access to fresh water sources, at the moment Israel controls it all.

    My Home country has started to sign agreements where we will sell some of our excess water(Glacier ice) to turkey and other countries.

    In Europe at the moment they are considering shutting down the nuclear reactors as they are lacking the water to cool them sufficiently.

    In Japan in some areas ground water levels have dropped that lakes and rivers are disappearing due to Industry over-drawing round water.

    Right now our biggest curse is industrialisation, as we want more goods and the production of said goods depletes natural resources that we need to live.

    Cheers.
    Witty signature under construction.

  10. #10
    Originally posted by KFord
    I wouldn't worry about us seeing the day that we over populate this planet. I would worry about the war that is bound to happen that will bring the population back to small numbers. All it will take is one "good" war or unexpected disease, and the so called problem is solved. Should the day come that we have actually over populated without a single war, resources will be so short that war is certain. While you are correct in being alarmed at our birth rates, you are underestimating out abilities to kill ourselves off at a much faster rate. The population numbers may be climbing, but war technology and the spread of untreatable disease is right there with it.
    I couldn't disagree more. Check out a population graph of the human race and look for the great plague: it's a blip.

    Nature, by and large, doesn't operate catastophically. It's almost inconcievable how one "good" war or unexpected disease could wipe out the human race. More reasonable would be a steady increase in social and biological problems proportional to population density problems. Natural population growth charts tend to be "S" shaped for this very reason. It's a peculiar bit of human arrogance to imagine that we're significant enough to bypass these laws of nature.

  11. #11
    Originally posted by Laughing Cow
    Right now our biggest curse is industrialisation
    And again, I could not possibly disagree more.

    Our greatest boon is industrialization. Industrialization by it's very nature generates resources more efficiently (ie. more resources produced for resources consumed than less industrialized model). Quite clearly our only hope for properly treating growing population with a stable natural resource base is to increase production efficiency - which is what industrialization is. And of course this has allready happened; this is exactly what industrialization has permitted us to do, from the irrigation age to the train age and onwards.

  12. #12
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    Christopher M.

    You are right to a certain degree, simply because so far only a small section of the world has been industrialised.

    Do you think we could have that that level of indusrialisation without exploiting colonies, 3rd world countries and their resources.

    My point was that if we bring EVERYBODY on Earth to a 1st world living standard(which we can't no matter how well we manage resources) than even industry can't save us.

    Our resources are already stretched, now imagine going four-fold on our current industries.

    Most important resource we will be laking will be FRESH WATER, not to drink and bath but for the Industries which use a LOT more than people need to survive.

    Next will be petroleum based products I doubt that we will be able to pump raw oil and process it as much as would be needed on a daily basis.

    [EDIT]
    The other problem that the world is facing is that we have become "service orientated".
    Check the ratio of Farmers/Labourers to Office workers between now and 50yrs ago.
    [/EDIT]
    Cheers.
    Last edited by Laughing Cow; 08-08-2003 at 02:20 PM.
    Witty signature under construction.

  13. #13
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    Chris, I couldn't agree with you more about the tapping the ocean. I've read several different takes on what we could do there and it is certainly an asset we are not tapping.

    However, I am a romantic about the whole space thing so I'm biased about it.

    EVENTUALLY, we would fill up this globe entirely unless we get people to stop doing more than replacing themselves. Pre-industrial societies have a need for larger families. Post-Industrial do not yet there is a holdover (naturally since so few generations have elapsed) for the larger family.

    I work at a private school and see some very large family's of 3-4 kids and there is no real need for that size family beyond personal preference.
    "George never did wake up. And, even all that talking didn't make death any easier...at least not for us. Maybe, in the end, all you can really hope for is that your last thought is a nice one...even if it's just about the taste of a nice cold beer."

    "If you find the right balance between desperation and fear you can make people believe anything"

    "Is enlightenment even possible? Or, did I drive by it like a missed exit?"

    It's simpler than you think.

    I could be completely wrong"

  14. #14
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    Malthus? What a coincidence, I just read some stuff by him yesterday.

  15. #15
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    Simple 'solution' 1: Get rid of all the excess, unproductive people now. Retards, seniors, untouchables, entire populations of 3rd world countries, protected tribes, and europeans, etc. Shoot them into the sun for all I care.

    Simple 'solution' 2: Expand. Its easy, it will happen anyways, and no matter what, at some point in time, "space" (the other planets and stuff in between) will become commercialized and militarized and colonized and pimpified.

    At any rate our star wont burn forever, and our galaxy wont continue spinning around this black hole forever (or will they) so we better do something.

    ...and at any rate none of us will live to see any of these things happen... mass war, mass plague, star exploding or imploding, the oceans being used correctly, or mans real expansion into "space." So whats the diff?

    strike!

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