Collapse of civilization within the next decades?

[Otto Harkaman]

Everything in this Universe eventually fails, even the Universe. So why all this stuff about failed experiments? Enjoy the moment.


Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long...revel in your time.

[Dowly]

Ehrlich's book seems to have garnered quite a bit of criticism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Po...omb#Criticisms

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Ehrlich's book seems to have garnered quite a bit of criticism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Po...omb#Criticisms

Somehow that doesn't surprise me.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Otto Harkaman

Everything in this Universe eventually fails, even the Universe. So why all this stuff about failed experiments? Enjoy the moment.

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies--
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.


Sara Teasdale

[em2nought]

Western Civilization has become the modern equivalent of the American Indian. Barbarians from the southern hemisphere will exterminate us and take our land. Our so called leaders will end up with Casinos or some such.



China will rule the day.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by em2nought

Western Civilization has become the modern equivalent of the American Indian. Barbarians from the southern hemisphere will exterminate us and take our land. Our so called leaders will end up with Casinos or some such. China will rule the day.

Sometimes i am really at a loss for words
Poor innocent altruistic unselfish western victims.


edit: oops i guess i did not see the irony at first .. lol



But China, yes. Why do you let them buy you out, and do nothing to be better than 'them', scientifically and technically? Survival of the fittest, eh?
Good that the US new nuclear navy doctrine will see to that.

[Catfish]

There is enough food and stuff to feed even more than the existing world population, if it only were better distributed. Instead of doing that or helping certain countries with agricultural means to become self-sustainable we mostly sit on our technology, and throw away millions of tons of food, every day.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

There is enough food and stuff to feed even more than the existing world population, if it only were better distributed.

Wrong. A very common false claim these days.

Instead of doing that or helping certain countries with agricultural means to become self-sustainable we mostly sit on our technology, and throw away millions of tons of food, every day.

Oh dear. Proletarians of the world, deindustrialise! The remnainjs of your lunch - pack it, seal it, cool it, send it to Africa! Germans, save water when showering so that the Sahel zone - well , has no benefit from it.

Serious, to assume that orhodox farming could feed these many people, simp,y is wrong, it has been shown by seriosu caölculation so often, and still some clever Greens claim the opposite and ignore the immense erosion of land that would mean. To produce these ammounts of food would inevitably need intense HiTech famring, and this again comes wiht a huge ecological footprint and erodes rersources, fertility of the gorund, and ground wate level. The lkatter is a problem in parts of th eUs alredy now, and in glasshouse hotspots in Europe like Almeria in Spain as just one example. At the same time we see a massive desertification effect moving from the equator northwards and southwards. While further in the North new fertile grounds may become available (after all there is a reason why Greenland is called Greenland), the resulting mas smigration of people following the food will cause immense conflicts sooneror later. In fact, that already is the case. And in the ened, even when Greenland still was green indeed, life it supported was harsh and the bvegeation and fertilit yof the gorund did never really suzpport the small population of Vikings trying to settle there. This and their cultural stubborness, trying to copy lifestyles that were adequate in their Scandinavian homeplace, led to the small colonies soon reahcing levels that could not longer be sustained by autark food production, lack of other items, resources and goods that needed to be imported from Norway not even mentioned). It ended with a shrinking of the outer colonies, then they were givne up, then the starvations gripped th emain colonies, and in the end there was cannibalism, and then it was game over.

The Greens always claim that traditional farming could solve any food production issue and any population level. That is a cynical or incompetent lie.

And I do not even intense fish farming and meat production here.

You can twist and turn it as you want - we are too many. Billions to many. Those naive lifestyle events here in the West, saving food, saving water in water-oversupply ressorts, and all that feel-well-soothe-your-conscience and collecitve Mantra-singing for Earth'S wellbeing - are vogues only,. nonsense. Quatsch. They lack the potence in net effect to make any serious difference. Reminds me of this monk I once read about, Jan Willem van de Wetering wrote about thre event. A young Zen monk misunderstood something terribly wrong in the daily talk of the elder leader of the monastery he was in. At night he sneaked out nd away, stood himself on the railtrack of the express train between Oskaa and Kyoto and tried to stop it with the power of his will and mind. Well. When the police next day visited the monsastery to bring the sad news of how it inevitably had ended the night before, they may not have expected to trigger the reaciton they got: laughter.

Do all this food saving and water saving and bepoieve in the faiy tales of orthodox famring to feed billions and this not löeaving an ecological footstep too big to not do immense damage. The events nevertheless will catch you and roll over you and will plow you under, and your hope and well-meaning will not have made any difference.

Without a dramatic decline in global population levels, all talking about saving the future and ecological sustainability, are meaningless. Physical hard-coded facts, ecological contexts and human nature are against it.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

You can twist and turn it as you want - we are too many. Billions to many.

That may be true but the single most important reason why we are too many and why we are being fed (for the most part) is because it is profitable. Very profitable. The moment it becomes unprofitable the experts will tell us why. They will tell us what we must do to solve the problem and someone will make a profit doing it.