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monty
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Joined: Sep 05, 2007
Posts: 3158
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 Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:39 am Post subject: |
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| skafather84 wrote: |
I'm saying you're commenting on a culture when you have no clue what's going on over there. Commenting on what kind of utensils the Japanese keep in their homes is a little different from mountain top removal. |
How so? Why are disposable chopsticks any different from disposable spoons and forks, or mountains of plastic from bottled water? Should we avoid criticizing the big car culture of the US, since no critic could possibly understand the lust for chrome and torque or the love of the open road? Why do you think that clear cutting tropical rainforest (very high biodiversity) is less important than mountain top removal?
| skafather84 wrote: |
I'm glad you're around to protect the world. You're doing such a great job so far. |
Thank you. There are lots of sarcastic a$$holes out there that I have to deal with, and your warm support is welcome. I have done a few things in my neighborhood that resulted in the preservation of a population of endangered species (and eventually cost me my job at that time). In 1997, I used my own time to do an energy audit of the company I worked for, and that resulted in about $40,000 in reduced electrical bills each year. My dissertation involved developing new algorithms for detecting change in time series of remotely sensed data - some of these methods are now being used to identify particular patterns of change on the Earth's surface. I don't imagine I can 'save the world, but I do believe that humans can make a big difference in their impacts, and that if a large enough group of people acted in that way, it would make a huge difference.
| skafather84 wrote: |
So if you want all this changed, how about you propose a real solution? |
There are lots of partial solutions, some big, some small. GTG, later.
Last edited by monty on Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
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DerKodeMeister
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Joined: Jul 24, 2009
Posts: 19
Location: USA
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| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 7:51 am Post subject: |
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| Sand wrote: | | DerKodeMeister wrote: | Overpopulation seems to be the biggest problem.
Eliminating consumerism and destroying industrial/scientific ways of thinking would probably also take down overpopulation. Nature can finally take it's course as the point of humanity isn't to save everyone anymore and "survival of the fittest" takes effect again.
However, I would like to ponder the possible outcomes of reducing the population significantly to the point of maybe 1 million people on earth max, but still keeping industrial and scientific views, and assuming that breeding would be forcibly kept to a minimum.
Let's make them all intelligent people who are experts in their fields as well so we can actually continue to make progress in these fields. |
Getting rid of the bulk of 6 billion people would surely guarantee that the most vicious people would survive - if that's your concept of an ideal world. |
If we are literally destroying all industrial and scientific ways of thinking and culture, and reverting back to pre-civilization, then yes, only the most vicious would survive. If we eliminate a majority of people it wouldn't be by any natural means, so it's probably out of the question. I was just thinking about what would happen if the human population never reached over a couple million, but we still made the progress we made in modern society.
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If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
-E.O. Wilson |
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Sand
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Joined: Sep 16, 2007
Posts: 7952
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:19 am Post subject: |
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| DerKodeMeister wrote: | | Sand wrote: | | DerKodeMeister wrote: | Overpopulation seems to be the biggest problem.
Eliminating consumerism and destroying industrial/scientific ways of thinking would probably also take down overpopulation. Nature can finally take it's course as the point of humanity isn't to save everyone anymore and "survival of the fittest" takes effect again.
However, I would like to ponder the possible outcomes of reducing the population significantly to the point of maybe 1 million people on earth max, but still keeping industrial and scientific views, and assuming that breeding would be forcibly kept to a minimum.
Let's make them all intelligent people who are experts in their fields as well so we can actually continue to make progress in these fields. |
Getting rid of the bulk of 6 billion people would surely guarantee that the most vicious people would survive - if that's your concept of an ideal world. |
If we are literally destroying all industrial and scientific ways of thinking and culture, and reverting back to pre-civilization, then yes, only the most vicious would survive. If we eliminate a majority of people it wouldn't be by any natural means, so it's probably out of the question. I was just thinking about what would happen if the human population never reached over a couple million, but we still made the progress we made in modern society. |
The really clever and capable people are a very small minority of the species. With around a million people, even under the most ideal conditions, human progress would never have gotten to where it is. One million people is simply insufficient. |
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peterd
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Joined: Dec 26, 2006
Age: 57
Posts: 503
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| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:44 am Post subject: |
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Well, without the technological society I'd be dead already (insulin-dependent). So I'm willing to go along with the crowd.
Anyway, after murdering a trillion or so people it might be harder to sleep. |
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Janissy
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Age: 43
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| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 8:58 am Post subject: |
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| twoshots wrote: | | ManErg wrote: |
Plenty of running water in nature. Water does NOT originate in the tap  |
I'm a huge fan of dysentery too.
Oh the dysentery...
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You won't get dysentery if you boil the water before you drink it. Filtering it through cloth ( which has itself been boiled and left in the sun) will remove the parasites. Why didn't people do this in preindustrial times? If you don't know about microorganims you won't see a point in doing all those extra steps. But they will prevent dysentery. Dysentery runs through refugee camps now when the need for drinking water for thousands far outstrips the available fuel for boiling. |
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monty
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Posts: 3158
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| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| Sand wrote: |
The really clever and capable people are a very small minority of the species. With around a million people, even under the most ideal conditions, human progress would never have gotten to where it is. One million people is simply insufficient. |
That's true, but is it applicable? We already have a rather large population, can't undo that quickly and humanely ... is the solution to the population issue a lot more people, some of whom will be clever enough to find a solution? IMO, the big problems come not from the lack of cleverness, but from a lack of wisdom in applying cleverness.
I remember talking to a student from a third world country that had some oil and a rapid rate of population growth. His view was that they needed more scientists, doctors, engineers, etc, and that growing the population was the only way to achieve that. I asked him if it might not be better to invest in education and expand the universities and medical schools, with a goal to improve quality. He didn't see that as an option. |
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monty
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| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:12 am Post subject: |
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| Janissy wrote: |
You won't get dysentery if you boil the water before you drink it. Filtering it through cloth ( which has itself been boiled and left in the sun) will remove the parasites. Why didn't people do this in preindustrial times? |
They did in China and much of Asia, where tea was the beverage of choice.
Also, there are more than a few plants that can treat various forms of dysentery, and people do develop resistance to many such diseases over time. |
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Janissy
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Age: 43
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| Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:31 am Post subject: |
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| monty wrote: | | Janissy wrote: |
You won't get dysentery if you boil the water before you drink it. Filtering it through cloth ( which has itself been boiled and left in the sun) will remove the parasites. Why didn't people do this in preindustrial times? |
They did in China and much of Asia, where tea was the beverage of choice.
Also, there are more than a few plants that can treat various forms of dysentery, and people do develop resistance to many such diseases over time. |
Woops. Good point. I forgot about tea. |
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sushil_yadav
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Joined: Aug 30, 2008
Posts: 12
Location: India
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| Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2009 2:22 am Post subject: Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment |
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Very soon science is going to announce the gene for environmental destruction.
Humans are not responsible for environmental destruction - it is the gene.
Humans are not responsible for anything - the genes are responsible for everything.
It is the gene which is responsible for obesity.
It is the gene which is responsible for cancer.
It is the gene which is responsible for violence/ aggression.
It is the gene which is responsible for mental suffering.
When it comes to Olympic medal they will give it to a person - not to the gene.
When it comes to Nobel Prize they will give it to a person - not to the gene.
When it comes to rewarding work they will pay million dollar salary to the CEO - not to the gene.
When it comes to "Theory of Relativity" they will give credit to Einstein - not to the gene.
On earth we have got oceans and oceans of water - which have been polluted/ poisoned by man - but this is hardly news for humans.
Recently Man bombarded the moon with a rocket to discover traces of water - and it became the newspaper headline across the world.
They call it progress, growth, development.
Height of insanity - Height of abnormality.
Don't search for a few molecules of water in outer space.
Take care of the water that is available on earth.
sushil_yadav
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment |
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Eggman
das Freak'n Techno Viking!
Joined: Jul 18, 2008
Posts: 4270
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| Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2009 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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Ithink and feel, theory disproved
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Pwning the threads with my mad 1337 skillz. |
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Asmodeus
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Joined: Feb 25, 2009
Posts: 1064
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 2:57 am Post subject: |
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| The original post in this thread rasies some ideas, but why make social commentary look like an experiment? Did you actually carry this out? |
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ruveyn
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Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 73
Posts: 5926
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:20 am Post subject: |
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| DerKodeMeister wrote: | | I was just thinking about what would happen if the human population never reached over a couple million, but we still made the progress we made in modern society. |
The same thing that would have happened if my grandma had balls. She would have been my grandpa.
If only. Shuda,wuda, cuda.....
ruveyn |
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