4 ms·

I probably will - given age and living habits. But that aside; are you saying that we should try and sustain inbounded population growth on this tiny globe of o

by jjuhl 7y ago

I probably will - given age and living habits. But that aside; are you saying that we should try and sustain inbounded population growth on this tiny globe of ours? And if so, why/how?

inflatableDodo 7y ago
From a purely practical standpoint, I don't think a die-off will help very much. Say we had a 85% die off, we would be back to around the population level of 1800, the time that Malthus published his prophecy. And along the way we would have had the most collossal wars imaginable and would be ekeing out a living on a much reduced habitable area. Basically, although it is an unpopular vision these days, I suspect that for the amount of effort involved in having a mass die-off, we could stabilise the population somewhat and start building floating cities and space habitats. People regard this kind of thing as unrealistic, but I think it will rapidly become realistic should we even halt population growth temporarily through environmental disaster and it would be preferable to start doing it before that signal to action. To sit on our hands and hope for our own actions to kill us off in order to save some remainder is the most fatalistic and least imaginative approach going. We might as well be deer.
- jjuhl 7y ago
  "We might as well be deer" - and what tells you that in the grand, global, universe-scale sense, we are not? In my eyes, we very much are.
  - inflatableDodo 7y ago
    >what tells you that in the grand, global, universe-scale sense, we are not? If we were deer, then Malthus would have been right by now. We are fairly uniquely placed as a species to be able to avoid being this dumb.
    - jjuhl 7y ago
      I'm sorry, but I just have to do this. Even with Trump as president? He takes "dumb" to a whole new level!
      - inflatableDodo 7y ago
        Look at some of the people funding him and ask yourself what their motivation is. It maybe isn't that dumb, at least if your motivation is to destroy confidence in democracy as a system and eventually balkanise the US so it can be openly ruled by princelings. He is pretty good for that.

by jjuhl 7y ago

I probably will - given age and living habits. But that aside; are you saying that we should try and sustain inbounded population growth on this tiny globe of ours? And if so, why/how?

inflatableDodo 7y ago

From a purely practical standpoint, I don't think a die-off will help very much. Say we had a 85% die off, we would be back to around the population level of 1800, the time that Malthus published his prophecy. And along the way we would have had the most collossal wars imaginable and would be ekeing out a living on a much reduced habitable area. Basically, although it is an unpopular vision these days, I suspect that for the amount of effort involved in having a mass die-off, we could stabilise the population somewhat and start building floating cities and space habitats. People regard this kind of thing as unrealistic, but I think it will rapidly become realistic should we even halt population growth temporarily through environmental disaster and it would be preferable to start doing it before that signal to action. To sit on our hands and hope for our own actions to kill us off in order to save some remainder is the most fatalistic and least imaginative approach going. We might as well be deer.

jjuhl 7y ago
"We might as well be deer" - and what tells you that in the grand, global, universe-scale sense, we are not? In my eyes, we very much are.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  >what tells you that in the grand, global, universe-scale sense, we are not? If we were deer, then Malthus would have been right by now. We are fairly uniquely placed as a species to be able to avoid being this dumb.
  - jjuhl 7y ago
    I'm sorry, but I just have to do this. Even with Trump as president? He takes "dumb" to a whole new level!
    - inflatableDodo 7y ago
      Look at some of the people funding him and ask yourself what their motivation is. It maybe isn't that dumb, at least if your motivation is to destroy confidence in democracy as a system and eventually balkanise the US so it can be openly ruled by princelings. He is pretty good for that.