Living beyond our means: second earth needed

[baggygreen]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Why waste your breath talking about evolutionary trends. Humanity is over, mankind is on the way out. Have you forgot there is nothing we can do to stop global warming. Go rob a bank it doesn't matter anymore. The planets surface temperatures are rising, polar ice caps are melting, forest fires, sea levels rising, lands disappearing.

Don't you know nobody can stop global warming now. The consensus has long been known, we are all doomed! Doomed I say HAHAHAHAHA. yes doomed HEHEHEHEHE HAHAHAHAHHA POO POO

For a moment I thought you were serious.

Then i nearly wet myself:rotfl:

[August]

I think you guys overestimate the harmonious nature of primitive life. Survival was anything but guarenteed. You limit human "range" to such a small area and you vastly increase the risk that war, overpopulation, famine, disease, climate change or any number of other disasters could wipe out the entire species in the space of a generation.

Besides, just because European and Asian explorers found Africa fairly primitive it doesn't prove that had Africans been left unmolested they wouldn't have had their own industrial revolution at some point. One might make an argument that harsh environments retard advancement but I see no evidence that it would stop altogether.

[DeepIron]

Besides, just because European and Asian explorers found Africa fairly primitive it doesn't prove that had Africans been left unmolested they wouldn't have had their own industrial revolution at some point. One might make an argument that harsh environments retard advancement but I see no evidence that it would stop altogether.

No not at all. Tougher environments would compel the people to devote more time to practical survival skills and less to other intellectual pursuits like writing and art. So exercises leading to the development of greater intellect would be lacking and neglected.

But, it still begs the question; Has Man's superior intellect (at least when measured against the rest of the organisms on this planet) really proven to be a "be all , end all" tool for survival. Or, will it just be more the matter of time running out and finding that "being smarter" than the sharks eventually led to his demise after all (barring supernovas, large asteroid impacts or global natural cataclysms).

Is Man really as superior as he thinks he is? Only time will tell...

[August]

Originally Posted by DeepIron

Is Man really as superior as he thinks he is? Only time will tell...

Add "...but so far it has" to that and i'd agree.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by orwell

Technology and the free market assure you that there will never let the world, or at least the west, go completely to hell.

Ah, I almost waited for it - two of the three magical things, technology and free market, to delay, to prevent, to block, to doubt any critical analysis, any self-questioning, any self-changing - always and forever. Now we just need somebody referring to the miraculous healing power of "unlimited growth", and the trio infernale is complete again.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by DeepIron

No not at all. Tougher environments would compel the people to devote more time to practical survival skills and less to other intellectual pursuits like writing and art. So exercises leading to the development of greater intellect would be lacking and neglected.

But, it still begs the question; Has Man's superior intellect (at least when measured against the rest of the organisms on this planet) really proven to be a "be all , end all" tool for survival. Or, will it just be more the matter of time running out and finding that "being smarter" than the sharks eventually led to his demise after all (barring supernovas, large asteroid impacts or global natural cataclysms).

Is Man really as superior as he thinks he is? Only time will tell...

It has been argued by historians that europe'S historical lead in developing technoloigy and science, diversity of arts, etc, came from geographical facts that separated the diffreent ribes and people inEurope for long, and then led them to trading with different things while needing to compete at the same time. the mixture of being confronted with foreign, new things while at the same time needing to compete with these, led to a climate that helped to increase creativity, original thinking, self-questioning.

I think if you have a hgarden Eden where no effort and no challenge is laid in man'S shoulder and he gets what he needs without needing to worry with how to get it, there would be little or no developement, but instead just stagnation. That'S why I am against utopias like communism and socialism that want a guarantee for everybody being seen as of the same value like any other, and getting all what he needs/wants for free. To a certain level, needing to compete is helpful in creating creativity and originality. It just shall not be allowed to go completley unregulated and unlimited in scope and reach. totally liberal free market that are run by total self-regulation only I oppose as much as I oppose socialistic utopias. the truth lies in between, and I would label it as capitalistic competition with a strong sense of social responsibility and a strong link to the social community in which it is embedded; and as a materialistic ideology that capitalism is, it must also be counterbalanced by a general awareness for the non-material value of life and non-material qualities, that can best be supoorted in the population by a general education for all that does not focus on the technical needs of the busienss world, but that trains young minds in what in the West we call the humanistic tradition of culture and education.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Ah, I almost waited for it - two of the three magical things, technology and free market, to delay, to prevent, to block, to doubt any critical analysis, any self-questioning, any self-changing - always and forever. Now we just need somebody referring to the miraculous healing power of "unlimited growth", and the trio infernale is complete again.

Yup, I have to agree with you there. Faith in science and rational market forces is nice, but where it may be leading us is not a nice place.

[Von Tonner]

The one concept missing in this thread is what of the role of predator. The shark had no predator until man. Now, if through an evolutionary process it could gain the intelligence to either negate this threat or avoid it that might ensure its survival.

If one is to take the roots of mankind as being in Africa then he had many, many predators to contend with once he left the safety of the trees and walked upright. Short of acquiring the ability to run fast it could be argued that intelligence was for him the quickest route to survival. Try and negate the problem by first trying to move away from it. Hence the migration north.

The role of predator in all its forms, from the lowly praying mantis in nature to the CEO of the largest bank in modern society cannot be ignored or underplayed in the impact it has on the life course of any species - be it modern man or animal.

[DeepIron]

The one concept missing in this thread is what of the role of predator. The shark had no predator until man. Now, if through an evolutionary process it could gain the intelligence to either negate this threat or avoid it that might ensure its survival.

An interesting observation... And one, IMO, that is certainly applicable to the current state of affairs of Mankind.

Seeing as we've subjugated all the less intelligent species on the planet, we prey upon ourselves. A quick glance at any newspaper headline or Internet media website lately surely confirms this. The newest developments in the Congo, the ongoing genocides in the Sudan, the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, plus numerous other incidents through history all tell the tale of Man's "intellectual" rise to world domination.

So, the question is in my mind this: Is Man intelligent enough to "reason" his way past this brutality or are we just another animal trying to survive?

[Hitman]

To a certain extent I would say that the problem also isn't just how we live, but how many of us are here. It is obvious that if the human race had less fertility and we were only, say 10 million people all around the earth, there would not be such a huge problem in abusing a bit the environment. But the problem is that we are 6000 million, and from what you can see in China and India, all hoping to burn their share.

We can use our intelligence to solve certain shortcomings and succeed in sustaining a population that would in any other species inmediately die of hunger, but we can't pretend that there are no limits. We are living in a limited world, a finite cosmos from which we can't exit, and when we reach those limits we will be subject to the same laws as all the other species: Massive extintion until balance is recovered.

It has happened many times with other species, they grew so much in number that they depleted their resources and then the majority starved. The fact that our technological intelligence allows us to put that limit higher doesn't mean that there is no limit at all.....and from up there the fall will be harder.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I cannot share your optimism, Baggy. We are are a test run of a blueprint very young in age, and despite our young age we managed to manouver ourselves already into a dead end. That does not sound very promising. Also, evolution is not a strictly linear process so that at any given time there is always the best of all designs so far created on display. Evolution does not have a goal, it just adds new stuff and deletes other stuff, and sometimes it is good stuff getting deleted and bad stuff added, and you certainly have samples of design studies from very different eons of earth'S history of life living simultaneously on this planet, like sharks and crocodiles and dragonflies and jellyfish living together with youngster like maritime mammals, and talking apes on land.

Man should really stop thinking of hoimself as a "crown of evolution". We are one sample amongst others. If we would understand that, maybe we would learn the modesty to save ourselves from extinction and stop messing up our life's environmental basis. Last but not least we are raping the planet becasue we think we have the right to do so: the right of the master of the house, the crown of evolution, the superior. If we are that superior I am wondering why we have so many existentially threatening problems now, all self-made. Is that a sign of intelligence? Or more a sign of a certain mental deadlock, a mental handicap that prevents true intelligence?

Wer could end like Australopithecus, Homo heidelbergensis, or Homo neanderthalis.
Fossil's.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by baggygreen

It worked wonderfully well, according to the study I've done.

What kind of study babbygreen?

Originally Posted by babbygreen

On a similar but different note, I wish I knew just what made our brains work differently to those of the great apes.. just to see where the difference lies!

It started with spindle neurons.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/apegenius/human.html

What realy made us apart from our cousins,..... I think/hope we know in the next decade.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Fish

Wer could end like Australopithecus, Homo heidelbergensis, or Homo neanderthalis.
Fossil's.

Yes. Although I "believe" that cosmos is moving to realise itself and to increase the level to which it does so, I wonder if "intelligence" in human understanding really is a necessary ingredient of that process. We cannot recognise an intelligence that is too diffrent from ours, both in quality and nature. So whenever we philosophise about the intelligence of other life forms, we try to miagine to what degree they match the scheme we have of ourselves. In the end we do not seek new lifeforms and new intelligence, but we seek mirrors in which we can see ourselves. we seek self-affirmation, and what does not serve that purpose, at best gets ignored, but usually gets used for our interests, and destroyed. the value of other life, other intelligence, we cannot see and cannot understand to be a value in itselt. The value of creation, of evolution, always is defined by us in terms of what use it has for us. that we are the crown, the top, and set the rules for all things to be, goes as an unsaid preassumption in all that.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Ah, I almost waited for it - two of the three magical things, technology and free market, to delay, to prevent, to block, to doubt any critical analysis, any self-questioning, any self-changing - always and forever. Now we just need somebody referring to the miraculous healing power of "unlimited growth", and the trio infernale is complete again.

How does believing that technology will change to harvest what was previously wasted, and that business will capitalize on this new cheaper resources that finding further buried ones, mean that there is no questioning? There is no room for critical analysis? What is there to analyze here? That if consumption patterns do not change in the next 20 years, that we'll run out of resources? Gee, you really think the same pattens are going to remain around that long? Anyone who believes that is as blind as anyone who believes in unlimited growth.

Let us take the 'water' resource for example? How much of this is wasted? What areas are truly in drought, and how many are just poorly utilizing existing resources? How much more could be harvested? Some areas are truly in trouble, but many? Efficiency improvements are what is needed. And what improves that? Well certainly not a paper about impending doom on a linear course. Gee, wouldn't technology to recycle all that wasted water, or better distribution, help growers everywhere? And if there was money to be made in providing these new efficient services, uh... well, I should think that a healthy market with plenty of credit would jump in to produce those technologies. Probably one of the best things you could do to help places that will suffer from these initial crises is to get business going in a profitable manner helping the farmer use water there. Gee, and what do you know, people are already doing this.

You have quoted, bolded, and underlined it yourself. If our demands on the planet continue at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we will need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles. What makes you think that it will continue at the same pace? Will there be some pain as adaption to new methods come along? Yes. There are always losers when something is changed. But until you can provide any sort of evidence beyond a linear graph that says impending doom if you drive off this chart, I don't see why the beginnings of change already in motion would not correct as needed. As I read through the report, I also notice a lot about waste. Yes, there is a lot of waste. But where it is locally profitable, there have been businesses set up to harvest what was dumped for re-usable material, whether it's compost or metals. Re-use, what an idea. A profitable idea when these expenses buiild up from demand.

To CCIP: Whether technology and the future is leading us down the right path in the case of, say, a unstable nuclear state, yeah, sure that's a problem. But that's not a ecological problem. Which is what I was addressing here.

[Hitman]

Efficiency improvements are what is needed. And what improves that? Well certainly not a paper about impending doom on a linear course. Gee, wouldn't technology to recycle all that wasted water, or better distribution, help growers everywhere? And if there was money to be made in providing these new efficient services, uh... well, I should think that a healthy market with plenty of credit would jump in to produce those technologies. Probably one of the best things you could do to help places that will suffer from these initial crises is to get business going in a profitable manner helping the farmer use water there. Gee, and what do you know, people are already doing this.

That's all very nice and well, but you are forgetting an essential part of the equation: GROWTH

Even if we could solve all food, water and energy problems -which is obviously unlikely- somewhen we will hit the limits of the earth, if even the physical ones: There will simply be no room for all of us. Take a look at Japan and see what I mean. The average size of a house there is 60 m2, and a whole family has to live there .... now. But what will the size of the average house be when the populations doubles? 30 m2? And when it triples? 15 m2? And later?

It is such a nonesense to keep a pattern that is doomed to fail somewhen in the future -even if our generation or the next one doesn't see it, which is also debatable- that you have to wonder if the humans are really intelligent beings.