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What I was trying to say is that a human habitat is a vastly more complex network of relationships than merely the land we occupy, in which we feel relatively b

What I was trying to say is that a human habitat is a vastly more complex network of relationships than merely the land we occupy, in which we feel relatively by ourselves within 10m of each other. For example how much forest should there be between two cities, to produce the oxygen you're breathing right now? Many magnitudes higher than those 10m. I'm still barely scratching the surface. As for suggestions... I don't even feel like going there today, I'm merely acknowledging my observations about realities that I believe are not up to our opinions. Reality is hugely empty, and when it's not, it's turbulent, vicious, and violent, like the center of our Sun. A neutron star. A black hole. These are concepts of "density" and properties of the resulting system, which we can apply not only in physical context, but also biological, and social. All systems are alike in some basic fundamental ways.

XorNot 4y ago
70% of the oxygen on Earth comes from algae in the sea, not forests - which notably, also aren't really "carbon sinks" either since trees breath O2 and emit CO2 as well sometimes. But it's also weird to say that you'd need more forest then that, as though it's mutually exclusive. Our suburbs can be extremely green filled, as can our cities, but probably more notably is the simply wrong element of it: the Earth is at no risk of running out of oxygen due to "too many human beings". PS: Of note [1] it's not a super reliable source, but this eyeballs that you'd probably need about 10,000 leaves or 700 house plants[2] (keeping in mind a houseplant is very small, so a large tree probably does substantially better). [1] https://gizmodo.com/how-many-plants-would-you-need-to-generate-oxygen-for-y-5955071 https://gizmodo.com/how-many-plants-would-you-need-to-genera... [2] https://medium.com/@candidegardening/how-many-plants-would-it-take-to-produce-enough-oxygen-for-one-person-7312743ed70b https://medium.com/@candidegardening/how-many-plants-would-i...
- jlawson 4y ago
  The point is not about literal forests, it's about the fact that just because there is 10m between people doesn't mean that you can therefore tile the world with humans 10m apart (or even closer). You need empty space, huge amounts of it, to make life not horrific. Whether that space is forests or ocean isn't the important aspect. What's important is that just because there is 'empty' space doesn't mean that filling it with more people won't have an impact on how people live.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    Looking through history i am forced to draw the opposite conclusion. Life was pretty uniformly horrific except for a very few people at a time that happened to draw some density around themselves. Nobility with servants lived ok, everyone else had a very bad go of it.

XorNot 4y ago

70% of the oxygen on Earth comes from algae in the sea, not forests - which notably, also aren't really "carbon sinks" either since trees breath O2 and emit CO2 as well sometimes. But it's also weird to say that you'd need more forest then that, as though it's mutually exclusive. Our suburbs can be extremely green filled, as can our cities, but probably more notably is the simply wrong element of it: the Earth is at no risk of running out of oxygen due to "too many human beings". PS: Of note [1] it's not a super reliable source, but this eyeballs that you'd probably need about 10,000 leaves or 700 house plants[2] (keeping in mind a houseplant is very small, so a large tree probably does substantially better). [1] https://gizmodo.com/how-many-plants-would-you-need-to-generate-oxygen-for-y-5955071 https://gizmodo.com/how-many-plants-would-you-need-to-genera... [2] https://medium.com/@candidegardening/how-many-plants-would-it-take-to-produce-enough-oxygen-for-one-person-7312743ed70b https://medium.com/@candidegardening/how-many-plants-would-i...

jlawson 4y ago
The point is not about literal forests, it's about the fact that just because there is 10m between people doesn't mean that you can therefore tile the world with humans 10m apart (or even closer). You need empty space, huge amounts of it, to make life not horrific. Whether that space is forests or ocean isn't the important aspect. What's important is that just because there is 'empty' space doesn't mean that filling it with more people won't have an impact on how people live.
- snapplebobapple 4y ago
  Looking through history i am forced to draw the opposite conclusion. Life was pretty uniformly horrific except for a very few people at a time that happened to draw some density around themselves. Nobility with servants lived ok, everyone else had a very bad go of it.