One End Of Spectrum There's China; and At The Other, Australia

[Whoha]

Originally posted by General Ludd


'cause there's too many.

statistics say otherwise, to the contrary, there aren't nearly enough.

[Japher]

Australians are a dying breed... and the sheep rejoiced

yaaay.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Whoha


statistics say otherwise, to the contrary, there aren't nearly enough.

6 billion is more than enough. What the hell would we want anymore for? It's not like it'll acomplish anything but overcrowding, resources depletion, famine and conflict.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by General Ludd


6 billion is more than enough. What the hell would we want anymore for? It's not like it'll acomplish anything but overcrowding, resources depletion, famine and conflict.

First off, right now Humans inhabit very little of the earth's surface. Second, we have a planet,a solar system, a galaxy, and finally a universe full of resources, third, with that many more customers, all of our agriculture wouldn't need props, subsidies, and tariffs to survive. Finally, the silicoids are expanding like mad(they started next to us and we aren't uni/tol so we are pretty much ****ed), and if we don't expand even faster, the Earth will be theirs.

The Malthus curve does not apply to Humans.

[Japher]

One End Of Spectrum There's China; and At The Other, Australia

and then there's Texas... the keep breeding despite everyones protest.

[Ted Striker]

Black, white, asian, aboriginee, hell it doesn't matter, send me an invitation Australia and I will solve your problems.

I'd hit it. I'd hit the entire country.

AUS!

[Verto]

Originally posted by General Ludd


6 billion is more than enough. What the hell would we want anymore for? It's not like it'll acomplish anything but overcrowding, resources depletion, famine and conflict.

Let's not spend so much time and effort on prolonging our lives then. Better to have young than old.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Whoha


First off, right now Humans inhabit very little of the earth's surface.

And look at the damage we do with such a 'small' habitat. More people means more damage. And you haven't given me a reason why we would want more people - all it means is more problems.

Second, we have a planet,a solar system, a galaxy, and finally a universe full of resources

Let's all move to the moon and eat moon cheese.

[Kuciwalker]

The government should stay out of the bedroom

Originally posted by General Ludd
And look at the damage we do with such a 'small' habitat. More people means more damage. And you haven't given me a reason why we would want more people - all it means is more problems.

What damage?

[Whoha]

Originally posted by General Ludd


And look at the damage we do with such a 'small' habitat. More people means more damage. And you haven't given me a reason why we would want more people - all it means is more problems.

First off define damage. Second, Right now we have obscene overcapacity in food and housing(Freddic Mac and Fannie Mae are going down!), what problems do you speak of?

More people means more thinkers, more workers. do you think that they would just be parasites that the rest of us would have to take care of?

[JohnT]

Why, the damage that only a sensitive soul like General Ludd can see. Since you don't see it, you're part of the problem!

[Japher]

JohnT's a breeder! He's adding to the problem!


but a cute "problem" to have

[Whoha]

He might think Highways and railroads and ssto pads and farmers markets and universities and factories are damage?

[Japher]

If you use goods or services that come from highways, railroads, farms, universities, or factories you have no right to complain... what is ssto pads?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Whoha


First off define damage.

Damage to the environment, pollution.

Second, Right now we have obscene overcapacity in food and housing

And despite that it still isn't enough. We're just amazingly efficient like that.

More people means more thinkers, more workers.

And? so we need more workers to work in the more factories that we need for the more products for the more people. Pointless exponential growth.


I'm reminded of David Suzuki:

Now, let me give you an example of an exponentially growing system to show you why it is ludicrous to think that we can continue to have steady exponential growth. I am going to give you a test tube full of food for bacteria. I am going to introduce one bacterial cell into this test tube and that cell is going to go through exponential growth. It is going to double every minute. So, at the beginning there is one cell. In one minute there are two, at two minutes there are four, and at three minutes there are eight and so on. That's exponential growth. At 60 minutes the test tube is completely full of bacteria and there is no food left. The question is: when is the test tube half empty? The answer is, of course, 59 minutes. At 59 minutes you still have half a test tube of food but you are going to be one minute away from filling it with bacteria. So at 58 minutes, the test tube is 25 per cent full of bacteria, at 57 minutes, 12.5 per cent. At 55 minutes it is only about three per cent full of bacteria.

If at 55 minutes one of the bacteria said:
"Hey guys, I think we have a population problem, I think we're running out of food and space," any sensible bacteria would say: "What the hell are you talking about? 97 per cent of the test tube is food and we have been here 55 minutes." And they would be five minutes away from filling it.

Now let's suppose bacteria are not much different from us; that at 59 minutes, a few of them finally smarten up and say: "I think we've got a problem, we better put every bit of resource into our genetic engineers and all our high tech guys and they have got to get us out of trouble." You know what they do? These hot shot scientists come up in 30 seconds with three new test tubes full of food and nobody in it. So they have now quadrupled the amount of space and food. What have they got? At 60 minutes the first test tube is full of bacteria, 61 minutes the second is full and at 62 minutes all four are full. Quadruple the space but keep exponential growth you buy two extra minutes. Now I can tell you that no amount of science and technology is going to quadruple our space and resources and that we are long past 55 minutes. We have to be thinking not of continued growth, or sustainable growth, or even zero growth, we have to talk about negative growth.