We cannot drill our way out of this oil crisis. Since 2000, oil companies working in the U.S. have doubled the number of wells drilled per year.
Although increased drilling has added new oil to the nation's supply, it has not done so fast enough to offset the terminal decline of existing fields.
We are going to have to import more of our oil. Period.
Are we in overshoot? Do we need to reduce the world's population?
Yes
88%
[ 90 ]
No
11%
[ 12 ]
Total Votes : 102
Author
Message
wisconsin_cur Moderator
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2272 Location: napping on the couch
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:25 am Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
Would it have been better if I had written,
wisconsin_cur wrote:
There is a lot to reply to, if I skip over something in the hopes of priotorization that someone wants addressed please let me know.
1. Adoption is not just a modern construct. The Romans adopted and the children were given the same rights as natural born children, sometimes prefered to the natural born children. This in a culture that also practiced infantcide.
2. I find your decisions about what is culture and what is instinct rather eclectic and i do cannot perceive how you make your choices. For example, you deny an urge to reproduction which, if we are biological at all would seem to me the most basic of instincts. Breath, drink, eat, reproduce, repeat... yet you look to apes when discussing the issue of adoption.
...
4. I find it rather insulting that you can detail everyone else's "real" reasons for doing things (ie having children) and dictating how truly loving an adopted child is impossible. You are projecting your own emotions on others. As a male of a certain age it may seem it is all about sex but as we develop it becomes more than that. Not that men ever stop enjoying sex or even being preoccupied by it, but we appreciate other things as well. Like children, sunsets, snowmen, baseball and the advent of spring.
5. I am still waiting for your hope. Modern society is doomed. Fine we are agreed. The source of that doom is what? You say it is cultural, we would disagree, but that is ok. I need you to tell me how it is that those cultural things will change after modernity dies even though you do not think they can be changed now (governed as we are by social pressures). All I hear is negativity and disdain, if you have hope, tell us what it is.
6. If you think everyone else is beyond hope (bound to culture as we are) explain how it is that you are exempt. Or can we really make changes in the here and now? Maybe I am exempt too, just in a different way, even though I am a "heavy breeder?" I don't know what you think because I have yet to read a coherent distinction between the apparent misanthropic attitudes you have have for modern man and the somehow better people we will become afterwards.
Cur
?
As it is I think his lack of rigor, reversion to name calling , and unwillingness to answer questions undermines itself.
Isn't someone angry if they are calling someone names? Can I call him angry if they are calling people names or is that also discrediting someone by focusing on one word? _________________ The sage experiences without abstraction,
And accomplishes without action;
He accepts the ebb and flow of things,
Nurtures them, but does not own them,
And lives, but does not dwell.
-Lao Tzu
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 218 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:01 am Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
Interesting thread about very difficult ideas.
Try to view the human condition as if you were an alien/extra terrestrial who had to write a report on Planet Earth.
Planet Earth
Earth has recently become dominated by a new variant of existing species. It is clever and adaptable and consequently it has experience an exponential population rise. This rise is in overshoot due to their ability to exploit hitherto untapped yet finite energy resources. As their population explodes they are rapidly depleting these finite resources, yet are slow to develop alternatives. At this time it appears inevitable that there will be a significant population crash though the detail and extent are still unclear.
The species is self aware on an individual level and shows some signs of developing greater communal awareness but this is not sufficiently developed to assure continued development. It is yet unable to control its combined force to assure its own furtherance. In order for this species to survive it will need to evolve greater communal self awareness. This may occur in the impending die-off, or it may not. The next few generations are expected to be tumultuous with no clear outcome. Perhaps a trend will be visible within 5 to 10 generations with a clear outcome discernible within 20. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 1:17 pm Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
overlever wrote:
(...)
Quote:
again, nothing can be done but you rage. If nothing can be done you might as well enjoy the sunset and coach a t-ball league. But you like to be the victim of this stupid species (which somehow you, special as you are, have risen above). I see no way otherwise you can be justified in your rage. It is hopeless but you have been saved. Nothing will work, yet you claim you are doing something.
This constant harping about him 'raging' is infantile. He comes across as upset, but also as determined. And no, the situation is absolutely not hopeless. It can be easily remedied. The problem is that most humans don't have either the balls or the opportunity for taking useful action. E.g., releasing extremely lethal viruses and such is extremely simple and effective, yet nobody does it. If there is any hopelessness it is because action is not being taken, not because there isn't any solution available.
wow, so your solution is to spread a virus and kill some % of human population?! I assume you want to be on the winning edge. No, I challenge to go, "genius", and probe your solution is great by injecting yourself some ebola... documenting the process in a website so that a lot of people follow your example.
(there should be a bullshit emoticon) _________________ anagami.net
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:27 am Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
It is hard to know how to think clearly, given the extreme situation we find ourselves in. As people realize that our paradigm of maximizing humans to the detriment of everything else is not serving the world or, ultimately, humans very well, some swing to the opposite pole of "minimizing" or annihilating humans.
At this late date, it is hard to conceive of a middle way, but a shift is necessary (or was at some point when there still would have been time to avert the worst).
Instead of maximizing or annihilating them, it seems clear to me that the main goal of humanity must be to limit ourselves, specifically limit our negative impact on the living world's ability to sustain itself and sustain us. But almost everyone raised in our current global culture of self-maximization rages at the notion that we should seek to limit ourselves in any serious way.
As far as I can see, we have not a snowflake's chance inside an active volcano of accomplishing the stunningly simple task of living within our ecological means, something every other of the hundreds of millions of organisms that have been on the earth for millions of years has managed to do.
Which leads back to the wonderful rhetorical question and excellent web site: "Are we smarter than yeast?"
Joined: Sep 17, 2006 Posts: 623 Location: No man's land
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
overlever wrote:
And no, the situation is absolutely not hopeless. It can be easily remedied. The problem is that most humans don't have either the balls or the opportunity for taking useful action. E.g., releasing extremely lethal viruses and such is extremely simple and effective, yet nobody does it. If there is any hopelessness it is because action is not being taken, not because there isn't any solution available.
The problem is really a crisis in individual consciousness. Just because a virus is released to bring down human numbers, it doesn't mean anything has been learned.
I would like to think that the challenge for humans is how to live permanently in a consciousness of oneness with the environment, rather than having to resort to extreme measures every 100 years to atone for its stupidity.
Anyway, it is quite uncertain that a signficant culling of humans due to a virus right now would help as far as preserving our species. Global warming tipping points have already been triggered, and reducing the global dimming factor would only push the trigger harder in the short term.
Gaia will probably take care of the population problem for us despite all our best efforts to continue indefinitely. Just like a cancer patient she knows that removing the malignant tumor sooner rather than later would enhance her chances at recovery. If the tumor is not fully removed, it will certainly come back and may be even more virulent on its second run. _________________ "It is no measure of health to be deemed sane in an insane society" J. Krishnamurti
Joined: Oct 06, 2006 Posts: 947 Location: was rwwff
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:05 am Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
dohboi wrote:
As far as I can see, we have not a snowflake's chance inside an active volcano of accomplishing the stunningly simple task of living within our ecological means, something every other of the hundreds of millions of organisms that have been on the earth for millions of years has managed to do.
I think that is a fallacy really. Most organisms grow and breed to the absolute limit of capacity, then die-off when conditions change such that their numbers can not be supported.
We are squeamish and don't want to SEE the process of that die-off; but it is the natural and regular course of our little world, and we might as well be content that such is the way of things.
Quote:
Which leads back to the wonderful rhetorical question and excellent web site: "Are we smarter than yeast?"
The answer is simply... "no". At least not as a species. Any particular individual MIGHT be smarter than a cell of yeast, but that does little to alter the actions of the species as a unit. _________________ Who is in the mirror, Mr. Johnson.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:32 am Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I like your distinction between individual and collective smartness. But frankly few individuals (in the US at least, and I include myself here, though I'm getting closer) are smart enough to live within their ecological means.
On the other point, you are right of course, in a way. But we have been clever (versus smart or wise) enough to figure out how to extend our short-term capacity, almost surely to the detriment of our long-term capacity, and definitely to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of other species' short- and long-term capacity.
The human experiment of language, and the conscious thought it enables, seems mostly to have allowed us to fool ourselves into thinking that we had escaped limits set on all living things.
But it has not (yet?) fostered a wide-spread wisdom about how to avoid getting fooled by our own stories (fantasies, ideologies, lies...) of limitlessness. Nor, apparently, has it fostered a sense that long term sustainable survival that avoids undermining the ecosystem one needs to fit into is superior to being a bright flash in the pan.
So "blind" instinct to expand into whatever niche of the ecosystem a species finds itself in seem to have proven itself superior to our vaunted abilities as and the language- (and so logic-, culture- science-...) bearing species.
But we're pretty much stuck with language. Even if we did something draconian like cut out all newborns tongues, the language instinct is now so deep that the kids would use sign language or other modalities to engage in linguistic activity.
The central question to me then is: How do we as language users adapt our linguistic abilities to a world of limits? I do not pretend to know the answer to this, though I have spent much of my adult life studying language and ecological limits.
Joined: Oct 04, 2007 Posts: 195 Location: Pskov, Russia
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:10 am Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
zensui wrote:
overlever wrote:
(...)
Quote:
again, nothing can be done but you rage. If nothing can be done you might as well enjoy the sunset and coach a t-ball league. But you like to be the victim of this stupid species (which somehow you, special as you are, have risen above). I see no way otherwise you can be justified in your rage. It is hopeless but you have been saved. Nothing will work, yet you claim you are doing something.
This constant harping about him 'raging' is infantile. He comes across as upset, but also as determined. And no, the situation is absolutely not hopeless. It can be easily remedied. The problem is that most humans don't have either the balls or the opportunity for taking useful action. E.g., releasing extremely lethal viruses and such is extremely simple and effective, yet nobody does it. If there is any hopelessness it is because action is not being taken, not because there isn't any solution available.
wow, so your solution is to spread a virus and kill some % of human population?! I assume you want to be on the winning edge. No, I challenge to go, "genius", and probe your solution is great by injecting yourself some ebola... documenting the process in a website so that a lot of people follow your example.
(there should be a bullshit emoticon)
if only i worked in a bio-weapons facility...*sigh*
there's no need to probe that solution it would work quite well; people keep trying to toss the fairness principle into this discussion; well you're wasting your time my friends life is unfair and the dieoff process wont be any fairer; its going to come to the point where people who CAN kill WILL kill, and those who cant will have to survive or die; but then again thats how its always been
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 12:39 pm Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
anarky321 wrote:
its going to come to the point where people who CAN kill WILL kill, and those who cant will have to survive or die; but then again thats how its always been
And you'll be hanging around waiting to eat the bodies. A true zombie in the making.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 4:46 pm Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
billg wrote:
overlever wrote:
And no, the situation is absolutely not hopeless. It can be easily remedied. The problem is that most humans don't have either the balls or the opportunity for taking useful action. E.g., releasing extremely lethal viruses and such is extremely simple and effective, yet nobody does it. If there is any hopelessness it is because action is not being taken, not because there isn't any solution available.
The problem is really a crisis in individual consciousness. Just because a virus is released to bring down human numbers, it doesn't mean anything has been learned.
I would like to think that the challenge for humans is how to live permanently in a consciousness of oneness with the environment, rather than having to resort to extreme measures every 100 years to atone for its stupidity.
Anyway, it is quite uncertain that a signficant culling of humans due to a virus right now would help as far as preserving our species. Global warming tipping points have already been triggered, and reducing the global dimming factor would only push the trigger harder in the short term.
Gaia will probably take care of the population problem for us despite all our best efforts to continue indefinitely. Just like a cancer patient she knows that removing the malignant tumor sooner rather than later would enhance her chances at recovery. If the tumor is not fully removed, it will certainly come back and may be even more virulent on its second run.
I concur 99%, we can learn to live within ecological limits _________________ anagami.net
Joined: Apr 05, 2005 Posts: 1538 Location: Springsteen Country (NJ)
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 5:42 pm Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
mos6507 wrote:
A true zombie in the making.
We will all be either zombies or zombie food.
I see plenty of zombies around my local area, just practicing to munch on Soylent Green after driving to the store on Soylent Fuel. _________________ Joe P. United Political Debate
"Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money." - Cree Indian Proverb
Joined: Dec 25, 2005 Posts: 499 Location: Hillsboro, West Virginia
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
mos6507 wrote:
anarky321 wrote:
its going to come to the point where people who CAN kill WILL kill, and those who cant will have to survive or die; but then again thats how its always been
And you'll be hanging around waiting to eat the bodies. A true zombie in the making.
Tellll them to ha-ar-vest and re-e-e-e-joi-i-i-i-ce in the su-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-unn.
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 11:41 pm Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
joewp wrote:
We will all be either zombies or zombie food.
The difference here is that in real life, peakoil "zombies" aren't undead. Maybe soulless and amoral, but very much mortal. So the prospective "zombie food" still has a chance of defending themselves.
I'd rather be on the defense than the offense.
Last edited by mos6507 on Sat May 10, 2008 11:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Oct 04, 2007 Posts: 195 Location: Pskov, Russia
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 11:44 pm Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
"offense is the best defense" ....its a quote but im not sure who the author is ...but thats irrelevant its a good quote ^_^ _________________ Tyler_JC:
"I love how every conversation on this website, given enough time, will turn into a discussion of cannibalism."
““Life is on the wire…the rest is just waiting””
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 218 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 7:26 am Post subject: Re: Population Reduction and Rebuttal Thread
To be blunt about cannabalisim................
What is the difference between
A Killing some one and eating them so that we may live and
B Taking their food away and letting them die so you can drive a SUV?
In both cases one dies so that the other may not be inconvenienced.
Having read what I wrote, does not A seem less immoral than B. Yet we are doing B with biofuels ............... with little outcry. Should someone do A, there would be all hell to pay.
It just shows how hypocritical and narrow we are as a species. _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
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