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

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by General Ludd


We need less, not more.

Just because you can not get any doesn't mean you should rain on the party of others.

[Japher]

Damage to the environment, pollution.

That is an industry problem, not a population problem. Corolating the two will get you caught in a conundrum.

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

Once again, an industry problem as well as distribution problem.

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.

Not everyone who is born is an Einstein... Chance man, chance.

As for Suzuki, I have seen signs that population growth is declining, but I am to lazy to go find them right now... However, I blame the gays!!!


Ludd, the problem is not population growth, the problem is the lack of human compassion to address the issue where the problem exists...aka, greed.


[sarcasm]My job just went to India!!!![/sarcasm]

good.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Japher


That is an industry problem, not a population problem.



Ludd, the problem is not population growth, the problem is the lack of human compassion to address the issue where the problem exists...aka, greed.

I agree in part... and that's kind of my point, actually. If we want to maintain the level of luxury we have in the west, we need less people. If we want more people, we have to live like hippies.

Afterall, it would take five planet earths for just the current population of earth to all 'live like americans', as they say.

[SlowwHand]

I saw what you wrote, Japher.
Just wanted you to know. I saw.

[SlowwHand]

Isn't something like only the eastern 1/20 suitable for "Aussies" ?
The rest is suitable for dingos and , uuuuh, bush people only ?

[Whoha]

Originally posted by General Ludd


Damage to the environment, pollution.

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

We pay people not to grow food.

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.

So our standard of living goes up.

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. "

First things first, human growth is not exponential(right now most countries aren't even growing except for immigration and that can't last forever).

and Second, we've been working on the problems of food production and space from second zero, not 55 minutes, 3rd we have a long way to go before we even get close to using up the earth. Further still until we use up the resources of the solar system, and so on and so forth.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by General Ludd


I agree in part... and that's kind of my point, actually. If we want to maintain the level of luxury we have in the west, we need less people. If we want more people, we have to live like hippies.

Afterall, it would take five planet earths for just the current population of earth to all 'live like americans', as they say.

I don't know where that saying came from, but China has surpassed the American Economy's use of raw metals like Iron and Copper.

[DinoDoc]

It's amusing to see nerds on the internet whining about people having sex and the conspicuous consumption in the West while posting from a computer in a climate controled house.

[Whoha]

Dino, his premise is that we should limit growth so that we can continue to have our high standard of living.

[Whoha]

It has been advocated before by the way, in Great Britain in the past, it was wrong then, its wrong now, once we have got the universe filled with people it might be time to start worrying

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Kucinich
The government should stay out of the bedroom

In this case they went no further than the tax report.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Japher


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

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I imagine AH's wife has locked herself in the bathroom.

Mrs Horse and I have already over achieved for our country and we're too damn tired anyway.

We're considering patriotically giving one away to a childless couple.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
It's amusing to see nerds on the internet whining about people having sex and the conspicuous consumption in the West while posting from a computer in a climate controled house.

It's amusing to see someone who makes 0 effort criticizing those who do make an effort for not being able to pull the whole load.

First things first, human growth is not exponential

It certainly is. How long has the human population been 6 billion?

we have a long way to go before we even get close to using up the earth.

Like he says, at 59 minutes the test tube's still half full of food.

I don't know where that saying came from, but China has surpassed the American Economy's use of raw metals like Iron and Copper.

And also population. And don't pretend that the USA never went through an industrial revolution and just sprung immediately into modern era technology.

Or that half the crap china makes goes to the west for that matter.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Whoha
once we have got the universe filled with people it might be time to start worrying

And keep the science fiction out of this. Doing what we please and expecting future generations to have the answer to every problem is beyond foolish.