13 ms·

If everyone lived like people from the year 1910, we'd all have long since starved to death. If we lived like people from the 1950s, food would cost far, far mo

If everyone lived like people from the year 1910, we'd all have long since starved to death. If we lived like people from the 1950s, food would cost far, far more than it does today. The Haber process and modern agriculture feed us all, and cheaply. We get five times more milk per cow and eight times more corn per acre than we did a century ago. We synthesize fertilizer out of thin air instead of scraping bird shit off of remote islands. On top of that, human fertility rates have dropped far, far below replacement in substantial parts of the world, and when the developing world is developed, I suspect they also will see declining population. Each person needs slightly more than one child for us to have a stable population. So, a fertility rate of ~2.1 (2 children per woman). In the US it's 1.7, in Germany it's 1.54, in Japan it's 1.36, and in Korea it's 0.94. China: 1.7, Brazil: 1.72, India: 2.2 (just above replacement, and dropping) We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. We can't ignore our problems, but neither have we met with any sort of defeat.

DrBazza 4y ago
> We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. Unfortunately, the main one we can't outsmart is volcanic winter, which has produced planet-wide famines on several occasions, and is all but certain to happen again. Geologically speaking, the 20th century was pretty quiet. In the 21st century we've already had two tsunamis (including the 2nd or 3rd biggest earthquake), and the Tonga volcanic eruption, which was fortunately below sea level, but still likely the second loudest noise in human history after Krakatoa, and Eyjafjallajökull which had the potential for volcanic smog but fortunately didn't happen. We're overdue a Cascadia mega-thrust earthquake which would have "interesting" repercussions for the tech industry, given how much of it is based on the US west coast. I agree with your point though, we've largely progressed through normal seasonal issues with crops, and dramatically improved yields via science.
- bregma 4y ago
  > Unfortunately, the main one we can't outsmart is volcanic winter, which has produced planet-wide famines on several occasions And yet, here we are still.
  - DrBazza 4y ago
    Indeed. But with 7 billion people on the planet, a volcanic winter that lasts just a couple of years would be catastrophic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931317 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      The main difference between now and 1315 is the amount of calories we get from meat. When we have a food shortage, farmers can't afford to feed their cattle so they sell them, depressing the price of beef. Rich people eat more beef, and poor people eat cattle feed. What really causes starvation is a shortage of shipping. Shipping wheat from Thunder Bay to Egypt requires a lot more ships than shipping from Odessa to Egypt.
      - bryanlarsen 4y ago
        Another big virtual stockpile is ethanol. If the price of corn rises, less of it will be converted into ethanol. But if the price of oil rises faster than the price of gas...
      - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
        I don't see what argument you're trying to make. All food will be affected, and billions may die.
        bryanlarsen 4y ago
        I'm saying that if food production drops 30%, millions will die, not billions. If both food production and oil production drop at the same time, then we're screwed.
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        Thus, we better get over our dependency of oil before the next food disaster hits. (A volcanic winter would be quite bad for solar too. I don't know how fast we can scale fission in a disaster scenario, but I think it's our best hope. We should keep improving our fission tech too.)
tebs1200 4y ago
> when the developing world is developed, I suspect they also will see declining population I suspect you are right. What is less clear is whether earth has the resources to sustain the standard of living rising in these developing nations. There is currently 1.2 billion people living in developed countries and 5.4 billion in developing countries. Even if the developing populations stabilise, if their standard of living increases to match that of the 1.2 billion developed population, will our natural resources and environmental systems cope? If not, we need to work on ways to maintain a developed world standard of living without using nearly as many natural resources.
- eru 4y ago
  For a high standard of living, we mostly need energy and some gadgets. We are sitting on a big ball of matter, so at long as we have the energy, we can make all the gadget we need. (You can even make food underground in multiple levels, if you have enough energy to burn on lighting.) So the real problem is energy. Luckily, renewable are currently getting a lot cheaper. And we also still have nuclear, if we really want to go that route. Fission works, and fusion is in the works.
  - nisegami 4y ago
    I've come to believe that having enough energy (assuming enough raw materials to kickstart the process) solves a ton of society-level problems. For example, the supply of potable water is nigh endless if we have the energy available to run desalination plants. Or, if we never end up figuring out an alternative fuel for planes, the carbon emissions they produce don't really matter if we can just expend energy sequestering it afterwards using energy from a more sustainable source.
    - api 4y ago
      I've heard it put this way: energy is the only resource. If we have enough energy almost anything can be recycled or turned into anything. Wastewater and saltwater can be turned back into fresh water. Trash can be separated and recycled. With sufficient and sufficiently cheap energy vertical farming is even an option.
mrpopo 4y ago
> neither have we met with any sort of defeat. Defeat against whom? Is human race at war with someone? Earth overshoot day isn't about survival of human race, it's about human being in balance with Earth. Countless species are extinct because of us. Is this victory?
- PostOnce 4y ago
  The very act of living is a war against entropy. It wants our motion to cease. All the other animals want our food. Many of them want our flesh. Plant viruses destroy our crops. Locusts will starve human children to death. We are absolutely at war. A trillion parasites want our blood: hookworms, ticks, mosquitoes, you name it. We destroyed smallpox for ourselves, but we also eradicated rinderpest to the benefit of a great many large animals (deer, giraffes, goats, cows, etc). We never started a Save the Hookworm campaign for good reason. We will wipe those fuckers out eventually. We don't even have to worry about our children being eaten by wolves in most forests now... because we killed most of the wolves. A fairy tale ending. So yeah, we're at war and always will be. Let's kill HIV next.
  - liveoneggs 4y ago
    when we kill all of the external threats we can turn on each other and meat will be plentiful, if not familiar
  - mrpopo 4y ago
    Mosquitoes are among the most prolific pollinators and many ecosystems depend on them. Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone because elk populations grew so large that they unbalanced the local ecosystem (overgrazing). Ecosystems are not "at war" with us. Parts of it are beneficial to us, parts of it are not. We cannot simply exterminate the parts we don't like because they are all intertwined. Of course, it doesn't mean that we should breed hookworms within us and spread HIV for the sake of it, but treating it as a war is a bit ignorant of how ecosystems work.
    - PostOnce 4y ago
redprince 4y ago
> We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. Sometimes it was just mankind surviving as a species though. Humans as a whole are probably hard to kill. But that says nothing about one of the defining traits of mankind: Their ability to form advanced cultures and civilizations. The survival rate of these cultures is abysmal and there is no reason to be believe, the current culture with its incredible high standard of living for as many people as ever before, will not fail. I blame Hollywood and their stories about the eternally advancing human race for this fallacy. Sure humans will likely survive a great many catastrophes but they might find themselves again in an agrarian society and in far fewer numbers. > We can't ignore our problems, but neither have we met with any sort of defeat. Yet.
walleeee 4y ago
The problem with this is it's easy to say "we can't ignore our problems", and everyone will agree, but for most meaningful purposes that is exactly what is happening. We've been ignoring the problems and saying things like this for over half a century, while they continue to get worse. When does it become advisable to start ignoring the people saying "don't worry, it's not too late, we'll figure it out"? While this may still be true, it's a great way to rationalize putting off the massive social, psychological, legal and technical changes we desperately need.
i_am_proteus 4y ago
The turkey tells his comrades what he is thankful for in early November. (with tongue very slightly in cheek)
cheese_goddess 4y ago
> We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. We are so smart it took us two hundred years to realise we are creating a disaster ourselves, and we still can't figure out how to stop it. Because we are so smart we keep outsmarting ourselves. Or our greed does, I'm not sure.
vrfvr 4y ago
Well, I think it's time to start outsmarting. If we continue down this path, were going to run against a wall
jerrre 4y ago
> We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. While this is my general take on these kinds of things as well, it's good to keep in mind that it takes just one outlier disaster to never be able to outsmart anything ever again, and perhaps it's just dumb luck that we're in a timeline where that didn't happen so far.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Yeah I don't see how we could outsmart a volcanic winter. I mean I'm sure we can grow some food under artificial sunlight, but nowhere near enough to ensure the survival of everyone.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    At least, most of the volcanic winters they record on Wikipedia seem to have just reduced crop productivity by some amount. It isn't like a "blot out the sun like in The Matrix" type situation. We might be able to make up the gap just by increasing efficiency in our distribution. Apparently the volcanic winter of 536 lowered global temperatures by around 2.5C, which puts global warming in a worrying light, though.
    - heywoodlh 4y ago
      > Apparently the volcanic winter of 536 lowered global temperatures by around 2.5C, which puts global warming in a worrying light, though. It's not obvious to me so I'll ask: why does the volcanic winter of 536 lowering global temps by 2.5C put global warming in a worrying light?
carlmr 4y ago
>when the developing world is developed, I suspect they also will see declining population The problem is that the developed world needs too many resources per capita. The developing world will have similar issues when it reaches a standard of living where they start declining. Also this decline is too slow and too far out to matter. We need to effectively at least halve global resource usage in the next 1 or 2 decades. Waiting until the developing world stops growing in 30 years is not a solution.

DrBazza 4y ago

> We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. Unfortunately, the main one we can't outsmart is volcanic winter, which has produced planet-wide famines on several occasions, and is all but certain to happen again. Geologically speaking, the 20th century was pretty quiet. In the 21st century we've already had two tsunamis (including the 2nd or 3rd biggest earthquake), and the Tonga volcanic eruption, which was fortunately below sea level, but still likely the second loudest noise in human history after Krakatoa, and Eyjafjallajökull which had the potential for volcanic smog but fortunately didn't happen. We're overdue a Cascadia mega-thrust earthquake which would have "interesting" repercussions for the tech industry, given how much of it is based on the US west coast. I agree with your point though, we've largely progressed through normal seasonal issues with crops, and dramatically improved yields via science.

bregma 4y ago
> Unfortunately, the main one we can't outsmart is volcanic winter, which has produced planet-wide famines on several occasions And yet, here we are still.
- DrBazza 4y ago
  Indeed. But with 7 billion people on the planet, a volcanic winter that lasts just a couple of years would be catastrophic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931317 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%931... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    The main difference between now and 1315 is the amount of calories we get from meat. When we have a food shortage, farmers can't afford to feed their cattle so they sell them, depressing the price of beef. Rich people eat more beef, and poor people eat cattle feed. What really causes starvation is a shortage of shipping. Shipping wheat from Thunder Bay to Egypt requires a lot more ships than shipping from Odessa to Egypt.
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      Another big virtual stockpile is ethanol. If the price of corn rises, less of it will be converted into ethanol. But if the price of oil rises faster than the price of gas...
    - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
      I don't see what argument you're trying to make. All food will be affected, and billions may die.
      - bryanlarsen 4y ago
        I'm saying that if food production drops 30%, millions will die, not billions. If both food production and oil production drop at the same time, then we're screwed.
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        Thus, we better get over our dependency of oil before the next food disaster hits. (A volcanic winter would be quite bad for solar too. I don't know how fast we can scale fission in a disaster scenario, but I think it's our best hope. We should keep improving our fission tech too.)

tebs1200 4y ago

> when the developing world is developed, I suspect they also will see declining population I suspect you are right. What is less clear is whether earth has the resources to sustain the standard of living rising in these developing nations. There is currently 1.2 billion people living in developed countries and 5.4 billion in developing countries. Even if the developing populations stabilise, if their standard of living increases to match that of the 1.2 billion developed population, will our natural resources and environmental systems cope? If not, we need to work on ways to maintain a developed world standard of living without using nearly as many natural resources.

eru 4y ago
For a high standard of living, we mostly need energy and some gadgets. We are sitting on a big ball of matter, so at long as we have the energy, we can make all the gadget we need. (You can even make food underground in multiple levels, if you have enough energy to burn on lighting.) So the real problem is energy. Luckily, renewable are currently getting a lot cheaper. And we also still have nuclear, if we really want to go that route. Fission works, and fusion is in the works.
- nisegami 4y ago
  I've come to believe that having enough energy (assuming enough raw materials to kickstart the process) solves a ton of society-level problems. For example, the supply of potable water is nigh endless if we have the energy available to run desalination plants. Or, if we never end up figuring out an alternative fuel for planes, the carbon emissions they produce don't really matter if we can just expend energy sequestering it afterwards using energy from a more sustainable source.
  - api 4y ago
    I've heard it put this way: energy is the only resource. If we have enough energy almost anything can be recycled or turned into anything. Wastewater and saltwater can be turned back into fresh water. Trash can be separated and recycled. With sufficient and sufficiently cheap energy vertical farming is even an option.

mrpopo 4y ago

> neither have we met with any sort of defeat. Defeat against whom? Is human race at war with someone? Earth overshoot day isn't about survival of human race, it's about human being in balance with Earth. Countless species are extinct because of us. Is this victory?

PostOnce 4y ago
The very act of living is a war against entropy. It wants our motion to cease. All the other animals want our food. Many of them want our flesh. Plant viruses destroy our crops. Locusts will starve human children to death. We are absolutely at war. A trillion parasites want our blood: hookworms, ticks, mosquitoes, you name it. We destroyed smallpox for ourselves, but we also eradicated rinderpest to the benefit of a great many large animals (deer, giraffes, goats, cows, etc). We never started a Save the Hookworm campaign for good reason. We will wipe those fuckers out eventually. We don't even have to worry about our children being eaten by wolves in most forests now... because we killed most of the wolves. A fairy tale ending. So yeah, we're at war and always will be. Let's kill HIV next.
- liveoneggs 4y ago
  when we kill all of the external threats we can turn on each other and meat will be plentiful, if not familiar
- mrpopo 4y ago
  Mosquitoes are among the most prolific pollinators and many ecosystems depend on them. Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone because elk populations grew so large that they unbalanced the local ecosystem (overgrazing). Ecosystems are not "at war" with us. Parts of it are beneficial to us, parts of it are not. We cannot simply exterminate the parts we don't like because they are all intertwined. Of course, it doesn't mean that we should breed hookworms within us and spread HIV for the sake of it, but treating it as a war is a bit ignorant of how ecosystems work.
  - PostOnce 4y ago

redprince 4y ago

> We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. Sometimes it was just mankind surviving as a species though. Humans as a whole are probably hard to kill. But that says nothing about one of the defining traits of mankind: Their ability to form advanced cultures and civilizations. The survival rate of these cultures is abysmal and there is no reason to be believe, the current culture with its incredible high standard of living for as many people as ever before, will not fail. I blame Hollywood and their stories about the eternally advancing human race for this fallacy. Sure humans will likely survive a great many catastrophes but they might find themselves again in an agrarian society and in far fewer numbers. > We can't ignore our problems, but neither have we met with any sort of defeat. Yet.

walleeee 4y ago

The problem with this is it's easy to say "we can't ignore our problems", and everyone will agree, but for most meaningful purposes that is exactly what is happening. We've been ignoring the problems and saying things like this for over half a century, while they continue to get worse. When does it become advisable to start ignoring the people saying "don't worry, it's not too late, we'll figure it out"? While this may still be true, it's a great way to rationalize putting off the massive social, psychological, legal and technical changes we desperately need.

i_am_proteus 4y ago

The turkey tells his comrades what he is thankful for in early November. (with tongue very slightly in cheek)

cheese_goddess 4y ago

> We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. We are so smart it took us two hundred years to realise we are creating a disaster ourselves, and we still can't figure out how to stop it. Because we are so smart we keep outsmarting ourselves. Or our greed does, I'm not sure.

vrfvr 4y ago

Well, I think it's time to start outsmarting. If we continue down this path, were going to run against a wall

jerrre 4y ago

> We can outsmart, and have repeatedly outsmarted, all sorts of potential disasters. While this is my general take on these kinds of things as well, it's good to keep in mind that it takes just one outlier disaster to never be able to outsmart anything ever again, and perhaps it's just dumb luck that we're in a timeline where that didn't happen so far.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Yeah I don't see how we could outsmart a volcanic winter. I mean I'm sure we can grow some food under artificial sunlight, but nowhere near enough to ensure the survival of everyone.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  At least, most of the volcanic winters they record on Wikipedia seem to have just reduced crop productivity by some amount. It isn't like a "blot out the sun like in The Matrix" type situation. We might be able to make up the gap just by increasing efficiency in our distribution. Apparently the volcanic winter of 536 lowered global temperatures by around 2.5C, which puts global warming in a worrying light, though.
  - heywoodlh 4y ago
    > Apparently the volcanic winter of 536 lowered global temperatures by around 2.5C, which puts global warming in a worrying light, though. It's not obvious to me so I'll ask: why does the volcanic winter of 536 lowering global temps by 2.5C put global warming in a worrying light?

carlmr 4y ago

>when the developing world is developed, I suspect they also will see declining population The problem is that the developed world needs too many resources per capita. The developing world will have similar issues when it reaches a standard of living where they start declining. Also this decline is too slow and too far out to matter. We need to effectively at least halve global resource usage in the next 1 or 2 decades. Waiting until the developing world stops growing in 30 years is not a solution.