3 ms·

> And yet, without the agricultural revolution of the 1960s, we wouldn't have grocery stores today with well-stocked shelves. It's not that we wouldn't have we

> And yet, without the agricultural revolution of the 1960s, we wouldn't have grocery stores today with well-stocked shelves. It's not that we wouldn't have well-stocked shelves: it's that we wouldn't be alive. We can feed as many people as we do because of the incredible advances we've made in agricultural sciences. Without those, there just wouldn't be enough calories to go around. Does the sum of all the joys of billions of people mean nothing to everyone who denounces modern agriculture? All this invective against technology is sophomoric, short-sighted, and fundamentally unserious, and if we followed the recommendations of people to whom science is a bad thing, just "playing god", then a huge number of us would simply cease to exist.

carapace 5y ago
Ecology is a science. > Does the sum of all the joys of billions of people mean nothing to everyone who denounces modern agriculture? The thing about that is that the story isn't over yet. Yes, billions of people owe their lives to the Haber–Bosch process (et. al., I'm obviously simplifying here) but if billions of people die due to ecological and economic collapse, is it really all worth it? As a concrete counter-example to modern mass agriculture there are ecological systems of food production that result in high yields while increasing fertility, biodiversity, and biomass (such as Permaculture, Syntropic and Regenerative agriculture, etc.) So we can have our both well-stocked grocery shelves and healthy ecosystems.
- bmitc 5y ago
  Additionally, it seems the production of industrial ammonia is a major CO2 emitter. https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-ammonia-production-emits-CO2/97/i24 https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-a...
bmitc 5y ago
Do you have any references for these statements? I have never even heard that things were apparently so dire in the 60s. Does your sentiment that we apparently couldn’t feed ourselves take into account population growth? What if the population had simply not grown as it did? My current understanding is that the U.S. overproduces what it needs, exports the excess at dirt cheap prices, killing off developing countries’ farmer livelihoods. So in the U.S., there’s multiple birds killed with one stone.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  > Do you have any references for these statements? https://gerrymarten.com/human-ecology/chapter03.html https://gerrymarten.com/human-ecology/chapter03.html The green revolution was a big increase in the carrying capacity of the Earth. > Does your sentiment that we apparently couldn’t feed ourselves take into account population growth? What if the population had simply not grown as it did? Of course it does. Listen to yourself here. You're saying that it'd have been better for billions of people to simply not have lived at all and for growth to be capped for all time. Would you go back in time, prevent the green revolution, and erase all those billions of people from history? Christ, I think you would. Limiting growth means billions, if not trillions, of people will simply never exist at all. All those moments of hope and joy and rest and relief: never existed, all on your say-so. We have a word for that: genocide. We don't need to limit humanity's growth. We need to go to the stars.
mandmandam 5y ago
A population at 60's level would be much easier on the planet, and the countless species we've since lost forever. To me that easily outweighs the sum of all those joys; temporary and impermanent, unlike the extinctions of species and glories the planet will never see again. And, I'll remind you that we still have more than enough starvation, despite the ability to feed all. Your reading of the arguments here as "against science" are a straw man.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  > Your reading of the arguments here as "against science" are a straw man. You're right. The arguments I'm reading here are not "against science". That's too specific. The arguments I'm reading here are actually against humanity. As I mentioned in another post, suggesting that it would have been a good thing that the population not have grown over the past century is the same as wishing to wipe billions of people, along with their minds, memories, and experiences, out of history. And for what would you erase these billions of lives? So some fish? A few trees? A few rocks? A toad spotted in some special way? None of these things can sing, feel hope, dream, or even suffer. Humans can. The desire to limit human growth on ecological grounds is monstrous and anti-human and there's no word for it other than "evil".
  - i_am_proteus 5y ago
    The environment has a limited capacity to sustain human life. Temporarily taking more from the environment than is sustainsble brings temporary human happiness, followed by great human suffering when the environment we rely on collapses. Civilizations throughout history have collapsed for this reason. Our civilization is not so powerful as to be immune.
    - quotemstr 5y ago
      We've been hearing about this inevitable collapse since Malthus, yet is never comes. And yet, like the brainwashed follows of a doomsday cult leader, anti-human environmentalist types keep up the faith even as the predictions keep failing. It's embarrassing. There is no particular reason to believe that we've overshot the planet's carrying capacity, that our technological ability to deliver prosperity will break down, or that some kind of collapse is about to come. This belief in imminent ecological collapse is just a rebranding of eschatology, the idea that the end of the world is coming and that when it does, the good and bad will be separated and judged. It's an aesthetic judgement --- you start with the premise that industrial civilization is bad, understand that bad things must be punished, and hope for Gaia to be the instrument of that punishment. I don't subscribe to this kind of thinking. I don't see any limits to human ingenuity. There's no need to limit growth, and anyone attempting to do it is committing a crime against the future.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pjkundert 5y ago
During WWII, 40% of the US food supply came from private gardens. Today, gardens amongst the general population basically don’t exist (are so few/small that they don’t represent a measurable fraction of food supply or available arable private land). So, it’s difficult to know whether or not we would cease to exist. I suspect not.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  During WWII, ~50% of the US population lived in rural areas. In 2020, that's now ~18%>
  - pjkundert 5y ago
    During WWII, the bulk of the population didn't have huge, well-watered and fertilized lawns, either.

carapace 5y ago

Ecology is a science. > Does the sum of all the joys of billions of people mean nothing to everyone who denounces modern agriculture? The thing about that is that the story isn't over yet. Yes, billions of people owe their lives to the Haber–Bosch process (et. al., I'm obviously simplifying here) but if billions of people die due to ecological and economic collapse, is it really all worth it? As a concrete counter-example to modern mass agriculture there are ecological systems of food production that result in high yields while increasing fertility, biodiversity, and biomass (such as Permaculture, Syntropic and Regenerative agriculture, etc.) So we can have our both well-stocked grocery shelves and healthy ecosystems.

bmitc 5y ago
Additionally, it seems the production of industrial ammonia is a major CO2 emitter. https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-ammonia-production-emits-CO2/97/i24 https://cen.acs.org/environment/green-chemistry/Industrial-a...

bmitc 5y ago

Do you have any references for these statements? I have never even heard that things were apparently so dire in the 60s. Does your sentiment that we apparently couldn’t feed ourselves take into account population growth? What if the population had simply not grown as it did? My current understanding is that the U.S. overproduces what it needs, exports the excess at dirt cheap prices, killing off developing countries’ farmer livelihoods. So in the U.S., there’s multiple birds killed with one stone.

quotemstr 5y ago
> Do you have any references for these statements? https://gerrymarten.com/human-ecology/chapter03.html https://gerrymarten.com/human-ecology/chapter03.html The green revolution was a big increase in the carrying capacity of the Earth. > Does your sentiment that we apparently couldn’t feed ourselves take into account population growth? What if the population had simply not grown as it did? Of course it does. Listen to yourself here. You're saying that it'd have been better for billions of people to simply not have lived at all and for growth to be capped for all time. Would you go back in time, prevent the green revolution, and erase all those billions of people from history? Christ, I think you would. Limiting growth means billions, if not trillions, of people will simply never exist at all. All those moments of hope and joy and rest and relief: never existed, all on your say-so. We have a word for that: genocide. We don't need to limit humanity's growth. We need to go to the stars.

mandmandam 5y ago

A population at 60's level would be much easier on the planet, and the countless species we've since lost forever. To me that easily outweighs the sum of all those joys; temporary and impermanent, unlike the extinctions of species and glories the planet will never see again. And, I'll remind you that we still have more than enough starvation, despite the ability to feed all. Your reading of the arguments here as "against science" are a straw man.

quotemstr 5y ago
> Your reading of the arguments here as "against science" are a straw man. You're right. The arguments I'm reading here are not "against science". That's too specific. The arguments I'm reading here are actually against humanity. As I mentioned in another post, suggesting that it would have been a good thing that the population not have grown over the past century is the same as wishing to wipe billions of people, along with their minds, memories, and experiences, out of history. And for what would you erase these billions of lives? So some fish? A few trees? A few rocks? A toad spotted in some special way? None of these things can sing, feel hope, dream, or even suffer. Humans can. The desire to limit human growth on ecological grounds is monstrous and anti-human and there's no word for it other than "evil".
- i_am_proteus 5y ago
  The environment has a limited capacity to sustain human life. Temporarily taking more from the environment than is sustainsble brings temporary human happiness, followed by great human suffering when the environment we rely on collapses. Civilizations throughout history have collapsed for this reason. Our civilization is not so powerful as to be immune.
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    We've been hearing about this inevitable collapse since Malthus, yet is never comes. And yet, like the brainwashed follows of a doomsday cult leader, anti-human environmentalist types keep up the faith even as the predictions keep failing. It's embarrassing. There is no particular reason to believe that we've overshot the planet's carrying capacity, that our technological ability to deliver prosperity will break down, or that some kind of collapse is about to come. This belief in imminent ecological collapse is just a rebranding of eschatology, the idea that the end of the world is coming and that when it does, the good and bad will be separated and judged. It's an aesthetic judgement --- you start with the premise that industrial civilization is bad, understand that bad things must be punished, and hope for Gaia to be the instrument of that punishment. I don't subscribe to this kind of thinking. I don't see any limits to human ingenuity. There's no need to limit growth, and anyone attempting to do it is committing a crime against the future.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pjkundert 5y ago

During WWII, 40% of the US food supply came from private gardens. Today, gardens amongst the general population basically don’t exist (are so few/small that they don’t represent a measurable fraction of food supply or available arable private land). So, it’s difficult to know whether or not we would cease to exist. I suspect not.

ethbr0 5y ago
During WWII, ~50% of the US population lived in rural areas. In 2020, that's now ~18%>
- pjkundert 5y ago
  During WWII, the bulk of the population didn't have huge, well-watered and fertilized lawns, either.