Go Vegetarian - Save the World!

[nikimcbee]

Kinda long drive, sure. Will it be BBQ? You need Neal's dad for that. (Texas BBQ)

So this dope wants to limit carbon intake in is diet? Last time I checked, all living material was carbon based.

They really need to tag this as a religion (veganism). I don't mind the concept of a healthy vegiterian diet, because it is healthy way to eat, but to save the planet.:ha r:

[Ilpalazzo]

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

The big one though is cutting back on the human population which is totally out of control.

Word. It's insane

I was going to type something in bad taste in regards to overpopulation, but decided not to

Suffice to say, I am doing my part and not having any kids in my life. Actually I just hate kids, but saying that I'm helping the world makes me sound awesome.

ps. I hope Aramike responds to my first post properly. So help me if you don't say it!

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by Ilpalazzo

What would you say if I called you a brutish fossil, symbolic of a decayed era, gratefully forgotten?

I don't know ... thanks?

[August]

Originally Posted by Aramike

I don't know ... thanks?

Well *I* like you!

[Task Force]

LOL I WANT ME STEAK!!!

But how does he thing that stuff gets harvested... Hey buddy its the 21st century, we dont go out in the feild and pick stuff by hand anymore. Does a tractor make polution, yes, does chemicals dirty up the water, yes, do vegtables need to be transported by truck, yes... This guy kind of reminds me of someone from PETA...

[Shearwater]

Another example of how a reasonable premise can be ruined by a bad conclusion of what should be done about it. People don't take too well to being moralized, but because of his doing so many people will probably doubt his statistics in the first place.

[August]

Originally Posted by Task Force

LOL I WANT ME STEAK!!!

But how does he thing that stuff gets harvested... Hey buddy its the 21st century, we dont go out in the feild and pick stuff by hand anymore. Does a tractor make polution, yes, does chemicals dirty up the water, yes, do vegtables need to be transported by truck, yes... This guy kind of reminds me of someone from PETA...

Actually I've been eating hand picked vegetables all summer long.

[Task Force]

Originally Posted by August

Actually I've been eating hand picked vegetables all summer long.

yea but is the rest of the populas gonna eat hand picked vegtables... no there gonna go to the store and get a bunch of commercial stuff, that a farmer was going to grow... and a farmer isnt going to hire abunch of people to pick and help grow vegtables... no hese gonna pull out a tractor and use that to do that...

and if its a bad season, and theres not enough to go around, then there will be a world food crisis... and the meat will be gone...

[totodog]

We need mass genocides to reduce the population.

[Task Force]

or abunch of bad carrots...

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by totodog

We need mass genocides to reduce the population.

Locally that already takes place, Ruanda being a prime example. I recently have read an interesting analysis in a book about the genocide in ruanda, and understood that it has had very different reasons then what usually was reported. It was about populationpressure in extremely densed social environment, explosive social pressure due to the social order collapsing down to family levels, and simply not sufficient farming grounds available for all.

We know from animals experiments, that if you put too many rats into a cage, they start to attack, bite and kill each other, not only when food is lacking, but the stress is too much and turns them into zombies. That is what has happened in Ruanda. Other examples could be given, too.

So far such events are locally only. But in case of Africa and SE Asia, they could turn into wildfires including the whole continent. It could also affect the megacities in the rest of the world, which includes Western metropoles becoming ungovernable. In parts and some sectors, many huge cities in the West already are that: ungovernable. Rioting, anarchy, civil war looming under the horizon. Burning suburbs in Paris, racial riots in LA, war-like street fighting in Rio, and the police in Berlin no longer daring to enter certain sectors of the city anymore, are just the prelude. You can have as much high tech as you want, sooner or later the police is fighting in a lost post.

Think of it as the Rat Opera.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Locally that already takes place, Ruanda being a prime example. I recently have read an interesting analysis in a book about the genocide in ruanda, and understood that it has had very different reasons then what usually was reported. It was about populationpressure in extremely densed social environment, explosive social pressure due to the social order collapsing down to family levels, and simply not sufficient farming grounds available for all.

We know from animals experiments, that if you put too many rats into a cage, they start to attack, bite and kill each other, not only when food is lacking, but the stress is too much and turns them into zombies. That is what has happened in Ruanda. Other examples could be given, too.

So far such events are locally only. But in case of Africa and SE Asia, they could turn into wildfires including the whole continent. It could also affect the megacities in the rest of the world, which includes Western metropoles becoming ungovernable. In parts and some sectors, many huge cities in the West already are that: ungovernable. Rioting, anarchy, civil war looming under the horizon. Burning suburbs in Paris, racial riots in LA, war-like street fighting in Rio, and the police in Berlin no longer daring to enter certain sectors of the city anymore, are just the prelude. You can have as much high tech as you want, sooner or later the police is fighting in a lost post.

Think of it as the Rat Opera.

Bingo. And one could think of it as a very brutal and primitive form of Darwins law, survival of the fittest. Those who are able to slash and cut their way to the top will live, those who cannot, will die, and thus the cycle will begin again.
Primitive, but the basic things are.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Bingo. And one could think of it as a very brutal and primitive form of Darwins law, survival of the fittest. Those who are able to slash and cut their way to the top will live, those who cannot, will die, and thus the cycle will begin again.
Primitive, but the basic things are.

I am afraid history very often shows not the cycle starting new, but that cultures behaving like this sooner or later reached a level where they extincted themselves. surviving only those regional cultures did who managed to run their business in a way that maintained the basis of supply with natural ressources, and that were able to understand that the country/place they were living in only could afford so and so many people using its ressoruces, and not more. There are several other factors as well deciding whether or not a civilisation falls. Interaction with others, for example, and the availability of needed ressources in the place one was living, and the dependence or independence from others. But where ressources were rare or one depended on others or overpoluation was allowed while not seeing the need to stockpile reserves instead of wasting ressources for ever-continuing growth and population explosions, such cultures were doomed to vanish, and often the way in which they did was everything from peaceful and unspectaclar.

Once again, for the fourth or fifth time, I recommend this great book by Jared Diamond, "Collapse - How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed". It really is an eye opener. It should become mandatory reading in schools and for every politician and business boss. The truths it outlines and then proves by the examples from history, are so obvious, and so simple. A whole lot of deep insight into the reasons behind civilisational collapse or survival you get in just one book. It could not become much more pragmatic. His narration style is such that it pulls you through the book, although it is no small one.

Next week I plan to start again with his former book, "Guns, Germs and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies", which won the Pulitzer. Both books are somewhat supplementary to each other, focussing on the same general theme - why civilisations fall or survive - but explaining them by focussing on different factors if the general answer to this question.

We are on a terrible road to hell where we believe that we must always grow, especially this suicidal idea of every growing economies just seals our death sentence in the long run. Birth control, and reaching a state of dynamic homeostasis on a size level were our consummation of ressopurces does not deplete the planetary ressources, but where the planet can refill and compensate them - this instead of everlasting growth should be our focus. But history nows not a single example where a civilisation growing beyond this critical point ever reduced itself and than maintained it's existence on that standard. Civilisations either took care to not step beyond this red line, and survived for long periods of times, or they stepped beyomnd this red line, and collapsed some time later. that's why realiostic attitude leads toeards seeing the chances for civilisational survbial of man in a globalised world extremely pessimistic. Many have been before where we are today - but nobody ever succeeded, as far as I know. Sicne we today are the first truly gloobal civilisational our species has ever formed, the collapse we head for at racing speed - demanding to press the gas pedal even faster! - will not be a regional one, but a global one.

Total collapse.

[Oberon]

Good point, although I was thinking more in terms of humanity as opposed to societies, but in a narrower term, yes, some societies will die out, pretty spectacularly, no doubt taking other societies with them, but eventually there will rise those who, as you say, lived within their means, and thus they will begin a new hegemony whilst the planet restocks itself, expanding into the vacuums left by their fallen comrades. Eventually as technology rebuilds and we claw our way back up, we will find ourselves back at the beginning.
Of course, such thinking beyond the inevitable collapse is a latticework of 'ifs' and 'maybes', but I will have to look up Jared Diamond. Thanks for the recommendation, I must have missed your earlier mentions.

There is one question though, one that I'm sure is plaguing all politicians minds right about now. What do we do to prevent such a collapse?
Certainly the first thing that must go is the realm of Political Correctness, as so long as society is cushioned by this comfort blanket, no hard decisions pertaining to the future of society can be made. Beyond that? Forced family planning? One child per family?
Or is it too late already?

[Skybird]

I have added some things to my posting, possibly while you replied. It seems your reply leaves out these parts, therefore.

I just reiterate: we are the first truly global society on this planet, with our economy globalised as well. what effects the one, sooner or later will effect all the others as well. the geographical borders of the past, due to spacing and long travelling times, do not count anymore. The regional separation of local societies, does not work as a model anymore.

Well, more I cannot say to it all. the perspective I find to be extremely depressing. If my grim assessment shouold be correct, then the only choice we still have is in what style and attitude we will face our fate: hysterically yelling and hectically waving arms and running in panic over the bodies of the already fallen while trying to reach the resuce boats that are not aboard anyway, or - well, differently. With some more calm and grace, maybe. The choice is up to the individual only, of course, a matter of individual temperament, class and education. But as a global society, of course we will run amok and wage war and terror.