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Or, perhaps, the key to feeding the world in the short term is petro-chemical based agriculture, leading to massive overpopulation and total collapse. while an

Or, perhaps, the key to feeding the world in the short term is petro-chemical based agriculture, leading to massive overpopulation and total collapse. while another key to feeding the world over a longer time span would involve permaculture-style methods and slower population growth, TIED TO ending corruption in distribution networks and much of the world's governments.

kickout 5y ago
Distribution networks is key. We are plenty of food to feed everyone in the world, right now. Petro-chemical based agriculture was one of the greatest innovation of humanity. But it's been misapplied and abused, mostly in the name of profits and slow/bad policy makers. Does not mean those tools and techniques can't be more properly applied. Can we feed them American style diets? No, but I would argue that diet is not worth scaling as we see several negative health outcomes as the result of our quantity and quality of calories. Link to my blog in my profile where I write about some of these things.
HPsquared 5y ago
It only is needed for a short time. Fertility is already below replacement in most of the world, only a few areas are still growing rapidly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition
noduerme 5y ago
Let's not tie everything too much together. Tying everything together is how people become unhinged conspiracy theorists. Let's take one subject at a time. 1: >>the key to feeding the world in the short term is petro-chemical based agriculture, leading to massive overpopulation and total collapse. Let's assume this is because the profit is there to make more grain, not because anyone wants overpopulation or collapse. What you're saying is that it works, it does create more food. More food for more people. People are less likely to starve. Okay, good. Until the overpopulation and collapse part. What evidence do you have that that will happen? You're suggesting limiting food to decrease population. I just want to be clear about that. You're saying that people should starve. Even though we could farm enough food to feed them. Because you disagree with the farming methods. Right?
- nerdponx 5y ago
  I don't think they are suggesting that people should starve. They are suggesting that we need to stop making so many damn people, so that we can transition to better farming methods (among other things). From my uneducated perspective, the pain of "not having enough young people" due to declining population growth is a temporary problem, whereas reducing the long-term population growth trajectory is still a good thing. Is that wrong?
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    > Is that wrong? Yes. The world doesn't have an overpopulation problem. It is clear that when economies develop and infant mortality goes down, people start having many fewer children after a few generations. Most of the world's advanced economies are in population decline already when you discount immigration. ' > the pain of "not having enough young people" due to declining population growth is a temporary problem The world economy was set up to grow which requires a constant growing population. What we're in for is a long term global population decline, maybe starting as soon as 2040. With lengthening life spans (covid aside) you have a younger generation perpetually having to do the work for more and more people as the elder generation ages out of the workforce but still needs to be fed, entertained, and cared for. It isn't "temporary" but could last centuries.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      > The world economy was set up to grow which requires a constant growing population. What we're in for is a long term global population decline, maybe starting as soon as 2040. With lengthening life spans (covid aside) you have a younger generation perpetually having to do the work for more and more people as the elder generation ages out of the workforce but still needs to be fed, entertained, and cared for. It isn't "temporary" but could last centuries. I think the parent is thinking longer term where "centuries" is temporary. Over a longer time horizon like this it's pretty clear that "an economy set up to grow" isn't sustainable in that we have finite resources and thus cannot grow infinitely. Which leads to the opposite conclusion to yours: that we need not to have a constant growing population (ideally over the long term it should be a roughly stable population).

kickout 5y ago

Distribution networks is key. We are plenty of food to feed everyone in the world, right now. Petro-chemical based agriculture was one of the greatest innovation of humanity. But it's been misapplied and abused, mostly in the name of profits and slow/bad policy makers. Does not mean those tools and techniques can't be more properly applied. Can we feed them American style diets? No, but I would argue that diet is not worth scaling as we see several negative health outcomes as the result of our quantity and quality of calories. Link to my blog in my profile where I write about some of these things.

HPsquared 5y ago

It only is needed for a short time. Fertility is already below replacement in most of the world, only a few areas are still growing rapidly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

noduerme 5y ago

Let's not tie everything too much together. Tying everything together is how people become unhinged conspiracy theorists. Let's take one subject at a time. 1: >>the key to feeding the world in the short term is petro-chemical based agriculture, leading to massive overpopulation and total collapse. Let's assume this is because the profit is there to make more grain, not because anyone wants overpopulation or collapse. What you're saying is that it works, it does create more food. More food for more people. People are less likely to starve. Okay, good. Until the overpopulation and collapse part. What evidence do you have that that will happen? You're suggesting limiting food to decrease population. I just want to be clear about that. You're saying that people should starve. Even though we could farm enough food to feed them. Because you disagree with the farming methods. Right?

nerdponx 5y ago
I don't think they are suggesting that people should starve. They are suggesting that we need to stop making so many damn people, so that we can transition to better farming methods (among other things). From my uneducated perspective, the pain of "not having enough young people" due to declining population growth is a temporary problem, whereas reducing the long-term population growth trajectory is still a good thing. Is that wrong?
- colechristensen 5y ago
  > Is that wrong? Yes. The world doesn't have an overpopulation problem. It is clear that when economies develop and infant mortality goes down, people start having many fewer children after a few generations. Most of the world's advanced economies are in population decline already when you discount immigration. ' > the pain of "not having enough young people" due to declining population growth is a temporary problem The world economy was set up to grow which requires a constant growing population. What we're in for is a long term global population decline, maybe starting as soon as 2040. With lengthening life spans (covid aside) you have a younger generation perpetually having to do the work for more and more people as the elder generation ages out of the workforce but still needs to be fed, entertained, and cared for. It isn't "temporary" but could last centuries.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    > The world economy was set up to grow which requires a constant growing population. What we're in for is a long term global population decline, maybe starting as soon as 2040. With lengthening life spans (covid aside) you have a younger generation perpetually having to do the work for more and more people as the elder generation ages out of the workforce but still needs to be fed, entertained, and cared for. It isn't "temporary" but could last centuries. I think the parent is thinking longer term where "centuries" is temporary. Over a longer time horizon like this it's pretty clear that "an economy set up to grow" isn't sustainable in that we have finite resources and thus cannot grow infinitely. Which leads to the opposite conclusion to yours: that we need not to have a constant growing population (ideally over the long term it should be a roughly stable population).