4 ms·

Overpopulation is the real inconvenient truth that no one wants to address.

Clubber 3y ago
It's not. We can sustain many more, probably 10B+. The problem is everyone wants to live in the same few places. This is mainly driven by economics (workplaces). The WFH revolution will solve a lot of this if it can be sustained. Imagine if you can dig a well, get solar or any type of non-grid energy, and internet. There are no limits to where you can live, and most of the acreage in the US is cheap. You don't need to have millions of people in the same few square miles, at least in the US. We can go back to smaller communities of people more spread out, instead of 5-10 megacities and 50 or so big cities in the US.
- steve_taylor 3y ago
  Everyone living in megacities is better than urban sprawl, which clears forests and woodlands. More agriculture is required for more people, which means more land clearing. Renewable energy infrastructure needs energy and resources to build and needs to be replaced at EOL. Whether acreage is cheap or not only refers to money, not the environmental cost. And I haven't even said anything about the environmental costs of manufacturing and shipping goods. People won't go back to a "simpler" way of life because it's a backward step in lifestyle. People don't want to sacrifice their lifestyle to do their very small part to help stave off a catastrophe.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    >which clears forests and woodlands. Strictly speaking in the US, it's already cleared. The center of the country, the Great Plains, has almost no trees. Much of the US is pastureland, and you don't have to clearcut a place to live there. >More agriculture is required for more people, which means more land clearing. Which means more efficient agriculture, which we have an abundance of. >Renewable energy infrastructure needs energy and resources to build and needs to be replaced at EOL. I'm talking create your own grid living, not create a renewable grid. >And I haven't even said anything about the environmental costs of manufacturing and shipping goods. Manufacturing cost is already there, but you're right about shipping. We do have extensive railroads and a massive river system already. >People won't go back to a "simpler" way of life because it's a backward step in lifestyle. Some people won't and they can live in cities. Currently, nearly everyone has to live in a city for economic reasons (workplace). Once that stops being a thing, the people that want to move away from a city, and the crime, and the traffic, can do that. >People don't want to sacrifice their lifestyle to do their very small part to help stave off a catastrophe. With all the talk about climate change, I've seen very few people do any type of personal sacrifice to change it.
    - eimrine 3y ago
      > Which means more efficient agriculture, which we have an abundance of. Which means more harm for the land. I am a farmer and salting of the land is a problem for me. > With all the talk about climate change, I've seen very few people do any type of personal sacrifice to change it. If some person earns 100k annually and another 100M - it means they have to do different sacrifices for holding the climate change. My opinion is that progressive taxation might solve the issue (but I afraid that rich people has both some anticipation of progressive taxation idea and some abilities to obstruct the idea).
      - Clubber 3y ago
        >Which means more harm for the land. I am a farmer and salting of the land is a problem for me. No it doesn't we're already efficient. We've known how to sustainably farm for generations. Efficiency comes from mechanization and computerization and both of those are already done. We're so efficient the government pays farmers to not grow crops. What do you farm? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation >it means they have to do different sacrifices for holding the climate change. That sounds like an excuse to not do anything. This is pretty common. >My opinion is that progressive taxation might solve the issue It won't as long as the government is corrupt. Plus, you have to figure out how to get polluters like China to stop.
        eimrine 3y ago
        I am groving most foods I consume, not for business but mostly for pleasure to deal with the soil. We (the humanship) are efficient but not sustainable if to consider few decades only (because intensive farming makes more harm to soil per one dinner), but if to consider at least few hundreds years then the situation is opposite - we are sustainable by the sacrification of efficiency. That's why I consider your argumentation as faulty. I understand a mechanization point but do not understand how computerization can help me, computerization means just counting faster, store more information and probably self-driving tractors instead of man-driving ones.
  - NemoNobody 3y ago
    It's bc we moved away from nature - to the cities, that we allowed the environmental destruction to occur. Had we all been rural still - and as bored as you get out there, we would've noticed more of the incremental stuff first hand. A sole conversation with your family "outdoorsman" - typically a boomer tho, if so you gotta be real careful they don't realize your asking about climate change or else all you will hear is the stories about that one time in 67 it got this cold before - totally normal. If you can have a candid conversation with someone that has spent a life outside about how different things are today - you will hear lots and lots of things. It's possible that someday all the animals alive left in the world will either be our livestock or as our pets/entertainment. Already today to many people most animals exist only in zoos or on TV. The city removed us from nature physically and conceptually. Plus it's convenient that all that "forest and woodland" you think is "safer" is owned by somebody that wants you to stay in the city. Try to leave the city. Where I live all the same farm families buy every bit of land that is sold as even remotely agricultural - many have accumulated 10-20 "homesteads" - original farms with a house and garage etc... They rip out all of the buildings and plow it down. They used to sell the house and buildings as its own thing - they don't do that anymore. It's not about money. It's about keeping everyone else away - in the cities.

It's not. We can sustain many more, probably 10B+. The problem is everyone wants to live in the same few places. This is mainly driven by economics (workplaces). The WFH revolution will solve a lot of this if it can be sustained. Imagine if you can dig a well, get solar or any type of non-grid energy, and internet. There are no limits to where you can live, and most of the acreage in the US is cheap. You don't need to have millions of people in the same few square miles, at least in the US. We can go back to smaller communities of people more spread out, instead of 5-10 megacities and 50 or so big cities in the US.

steve_taylor 3y ago
Everyone living in megacities is better than urban sprawl, which clears forests and woodlands. More agriculture is required for more people, which means more land clearing. Renewable energy infrastructure needs energy and resources to build and needs to be replaced at EOL. Whether acreage is cheap or not only refers to money, not the environmental cost. And I haven't even said anything about the environmental costs of manufacturing and shipping goods. People won't go back to a "simpler" way of life because it's a backward step in lifestyle. People don't want to sacrifice their lifestyle to do their very small part to help stave off a catastrophe.
- Clubber 3y ago
  >which clears forests and woodlands. Strictly speaking in the US, it's already cleared. The center of the country, the Great Plains, has almost no trees. Much of the US is pastureland, and you don't have to clearcut a place to live there. >More agriculture is required for more people, which means more land clearing. Which means more efficient agriculture, which we have an abundance of. >Renewable energy infrastructure needs energy and resources to build and needs to be replaced at EOL. I'm talking create your own grid living, not create a renewable grid. >And I haven't even said anything about the environmental costs of manufacturing and shipping goods. Manufacturing cost is already there, but you're right about shipping. We do have extensive railroads and a massive river system already. >People won't go back to a "simpler" way of life because it's a backward step in lifestyle. Some people won't and they can live in cities. Currently, nearly everyone has to live in a city for economic reasons (workplace). Once that stops being a thing, the people that want to move away from a city, and the crime, and the traffic, can do that. >People don't want to sacrifice their lifestyle to do their very small part to help stave off a catastrophe. With all the talk about climate change, I've seen very few people do any type of personal sacrifice to change it.
  - eimrine 3y ago
    > Which means more efficient agriculture, which we have an abundance of. Which means more harm for the land. I am a farmer and salting of the land is a problem for me. > With all the talk about climate change, I've seen very few people do any type of personal sacrifice to change it. If some person earns 100k annually and another 100M - it means they have to do different sacrifices for holding the climate change. My opinion is that progressive taxation might solve the issue (but I afraid that rich people has both some anticipation of progressive taxation idea and some abilities to obstruct the idea).
    - Clubber 3y ago
      >Which means more harm for the land. I am a farmer and salting of the land is a problem for me. No it doesn't we're already efficient. We've known how to sustainably farm for generations. Efficiency comes from mechanization and computerization and both of those are already done. We're so efficient the government pays farmers to not grow crops. What do you farm? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_rotation >it means they have to do different sacrifices for holding the climate change. That sounds like an excuse to not do anything. This is pretty common. >My opinion is that progressive taxation might solve the issue It won't as long as the government is corrupt. Plus, you have to figure out how to get polluters like China to stop.
      - eimrine 3y ago
        I am groving most foods I consume, not for business but mostly for pleasure to deal with the soil. We (the humanship) are efficient but not sustainable if to consider few decades only (because intensive farming makes more harm to soil per one dinner), but if to consider at least few hundreds years then the situation is opposite - we are sustainable by the sacrification of efficiency. That's why I consider your argumentation as faulty. I understand a mechanization point but do not understand how computerization can help me, computerization means just counting faster, store more information and probably self-driving tractors instead of man-driving ones.
- NemoNobody 3y ago
  It's bc we moved away from nature - to the cities, that we allowed the environmental destruction to occur. Had we all been rural still - and as bored as you get out there, we would've noticed more of the incremental stuff first hand. A sole conversation with your family "outdoorsman" - typically a boomer tho, if so you gotta be real careful they don't realize your asking about climate change or else all you will hear is the stories about that one time in 67 it got this cold before - totally normal. If you can have a candid conversation with someone that has spent a life outside about how different things are today - you will hear lots and lots of things. It's possible that someday all the animals alive left in the world will either be our livestock or as our pets/entertainment. Already today to many people most animals exist only in zoos or on TV. The city removed us from nature physically and conceptually. Plus it's convenient that all that "forest and woodland" you think is "safer" is owned by somebody that wants you to stay in the city. Try to leave the city. Where I live all the same farm families buy every bit of land that is sold as even remotely agricultural - many have accumulated 10-20 "homesteads" - original farms with a house and garage etc... They rip out all of the buildings and plow it down. They used to sell the house and buildings as its own thing - they don't do that anymore. It's not about money. It's about keeping everyone else away - in the cities.