The little lost angel wrote:
>>The absolute limit is about 100 cubic meters per person. It's like like
>>living in prison, but it far far far away -- as it takes about 2
trillion
>>people to use up 70% of land area (rest ommited as hardly habilatbe,
like
>>Himalaya, lakes and stuff).
>
>
> 100m3 per person, that's a space of around 4.6m around... Slightly
> better than prison but still not a place I think most of us would want
> to be in. Does this 100m3 includes the space needed for food and other
> goods production?
It's a size of self sustainig biosphere at the 150 million killometers
distance from Sun (with 1 human being inside).
> If so, the actual amount of usable personal space
> would be significantly less. Do we really want to live in sardine
> cans?
I'm just pointing out taht we're ways off from such situation.
> In theory my country can sup****t a lot more people than it holds now.
> But already I can barely stand the crush and crowd of people, yet like
> you, my government will have us increase the population by another 50%
> for the sake of the economy.
It will take your cvountry a looong time if it's a developed one.
And we're not talking about meager 50% but about 30000%.
> Yes, we could all live functionally in minimalistic conditions, but I
> happen to prefer a quality life with space to roam than one as a drone
> contributing merely to the pleasures of the elite.
>
>>You're ignoring economic pressure. And this one works best. If resources
are
>>scarce they are expensive. And in hard situation people do not like to
>>reproduce if that reproduction is not going to be beneficial.
>
> By the time that kicks in, it may be too late, if it isn't already.
It kicks in just now. And in countries with low number of population per
area (Russia is biggest country in the world, about 50% bigger than China,
yest they have only 15% China's population and *decreasing*).
> It's like global warming, by the time the signs are staring at us in
> the face, it may be too late to do anything useful to reverse the
> effects before it rolls us over by sheer momentum.
Global warming? 600 years ago in the southern areas of my ****ry there
were
wineyards and peach gardens. Now they're vitually none. So, it has been a
bit warmer then. And Earth proliferated.
Yes we do cause a global warming, but another matter is what are the bad
effects, and what are the good. The good ones are now completely ignored
and
bad are not understood.
>>You're right. In countries where manual labor is not so im****tant to
sustain
>> the family the families are smaller. And in more troubled times people
>>reproduce much less. Look at Russia (and Ukraine) as prime exaple. Those
are
>>industrially developed countries, and manual labour is not needed to
keep
>>families up. As situation is not perceived as good enough though, their
>>population is (rapidly) decreasing. Natural laws and laws of economy do
work.
>
> The problem is in many cases, the government attempts to counter the
> natural laws. Just like in mine.
Your govement in agreement with natural law, I'm affraid.
>>>But yet we have well
>>>developed countries pu****ng reproduction policies trying to increase
>>>population growth.
>>
>>And rightly so. This is simply better for economy.
>
> Sacrificing the world tomorrow for better economics today is right?
We're not sacrificing anything. That's the point. To sacrifice something
one
must know the thing he/she is sacrificing.
> Well, probably doesn't matter to us since we would still benefit and
> enjoy a booming economy. Too bad for the (more) people coming after us
> who have to deal with the aftermath.
And if the aftermath is positive? We simply do not know. What we know is
that immediate effect is negative.
>>Simply. The laws of nature do not exclude humans. All species reduce
>>reproduction if conditions are not good enough.
>
> Except the very perverse human race which unfortunately has the
> conscious will to choose otherwise.
It's not true. Simply.
That's why I'm talking about false permise.
>>Harmful to society and to economy.
>
> Harmful to the economy perhaps as there are less people for the
> government to tax, less people to consume etc. But that's never been
> my concern in this particular discussion. It's the long term
> viability/survivability of the world in a NOT minimalist kind of way.
We don't know how that world works. So talking about its survivability is
moot.
>>>Perhaps currently the "mass produced" kids are
>>>from poorly developed region but it doesn't change the fact that
>>>having less people in the long run means better quality of living for
>>>everybody, no matter where you are. Poorer countries do eventually
>>>become developed.
>>
>>And stop kid "mass production".
>
> At which point, they would have already contribute irrevocably to at
> least a 100 years of ecological burden. It's better than they don't
> add these burden today.
What is an ecological burden? First define it.
>>We're way too supid to know anything exact about the future. Wasting
energy
>>on blind moves is a stupid idea. First we have to understand how things
>>work, the we can make an educated decission. Now we can't.
>
> Having less children saves energy.
Im talking about energy to do things, not in physical sense. Less children
in a developed country they lesser number of future brains with chances to
solve our future problems. And majority of that problems are not
populaiton
related.
> We don't know how exactly having a lot more people will do in terms of
> the planet's ability to sup****t it, in that we are blind perhaps.
> Perhaps it can, perhaps it cannot. Assuming that it can, is not
> exactly prudent is it? However, we do know the planet CAN sup****t a
> lesser population, in that we are not blind.
We also know it can sup****t twice the current population as well. We know
the limits are much further away. And we know of immediate problems with
population reduction.
> Is a 100% guarantee of a
> better quality of life for a smaller population better than an unknown
> gamble of the entire planet's fate?
This conclusion is simply false. There is no such guarantee! If you're so
eager to use historical data, then consider that historically average
quality of life was worse not better :)
So I could make a similarily false logic leap like yours and "prove" that
reducing population is a way to worsen the live of the future generations
:)
>>Noone has proven tha ecology is non-sustainable. It rather looks like
it's
>>much more sustainable that we think. Fossil fuels are only like using
value
>
> As long as technological advancement manages to keep up with our
> needs. But these advancement usually come with a price, and that price
> is usually variety and choice. Sure we could all survive healthily
> enough on 3 meals every day comprising of the same manufactured
> carbohydrates, fibre, protein slabs and vitamin pills. But is that
> desirable? Maybe to some it is, to some of us, that's not a life worth
> living.
We know we are able to produce normal food for much more people. Developed
countries produce a 5 times more food from the same area.
>>viable to produce fuel from crops containig a lot of oligosaccharides
and
>>starch (apolysaccharide), at about 90-100$ per barrel it becomes viable
to
>>produce fuel from cellulose which is abundant in plants, and in parts of
>>plants now thrown away. And even better there are fuel usable platns
which
>>are not crops but which grow much faster and in areas not suitable for
crops
>>(like willows). There are in fact countries (for example Brasil) where
>>significant part of trans****t is based on such fuels).
>
> And we have re****ts of concerns that farmers are diverting so much
> land to biofuel production for profits that there might not be enough
> to feed people.
Now we're producing more food than we could eat, yet there are hundreds of
millions starving...
IOW: things are not so simple.
Besides I wrote about making fuels from not edible parts of plants, from
parts now considered a waste (and even quite often simply burned!)
>>>None of us alive today will benefit from a population reduction
>>>policy. But 10 generations down, those living would be cursing us for
>>>being short sighted and passing to them an unsustainable planet as our
>>>legacy.
>>
>>We're now neither shortsighted nor longsighetd -- we're allmost blind.
>
> Blind to the future, blindly gambling that technology will get us out
> of the death trap.
What death trap? First show that we're in some.
> Thus, is it not better than we do not gamble the
> world on it?
There is no gamble, I'm affraid. You want to decrease quality of life of
current generation and it's immediate descendants for the sake of non
proven, illusory, benefits 10 generations down the road.
We don't know if there are any benefits to begin with.
> Should technology prevail, the lives of a lesser
> population will be vastly improved, but the lives of a greater
> population not that better off.
You derived that statement from what?
Again, false logic.
>>>Any hard facts to back up that claim?
>>
>>It's a significant percentage (AFAIR it's in the teens percents).
>
> According to the Internet, 98.4% of all statistics are made up ;)
Those are probably true... Unfortunately.
>>They're unable to create psychic links with them? Things don't go like
those
>>parent thought they would (they are often waiting long for their own,
then
>>they look for a child to adopt, and they have idealised image of how it
is
>>to have a child. Such image is rarely even close to being adequate)? And
>>last but not least, genes (and our animal instincts associated with
them) do
>>work.
>
>
> Then, the problem is with the parents, all the more they shouldn't
> have children.
False logic again. It so happens that they could have their own and be OK
parents to them. We're made up in such a way that we're more forgiving and
more accepting to those bearing our genes. With adopted children biology
heps us a lot less.
> Even for biological families, there are many I see that
> are barely, if at all, qualified to be parents. My neighbour has 4
> adopted children, it's been years, I don't see them having any
> abnormal problems that a biological family does not.
Probably majority of adopting parents are OK. The problem is with the
remainng but still significant part.
And look, that people adopting children are generally prepared (or think
they are prepared) to do so. And they are typically checked by variuos
authorities before they're allowed to take the child. Such screeing should
reduce mistakes, yet the problem is significant. Increasing number of
adopting people, especially by various artificial means wont help that
statistics.
>>>the ecological benefits have been realized since the parents are
>>>unlikely at that point to have their own children.
>>
>>I don't se here any ecological benefits. But I see children whoich got
their
>>family and then lost is again. Imagine their suffering.
>
> Every adopted child that takes the place of another newborn, say via
> test tubes, is one less lifetime of pollution and ecological stress.
What ecological stress? This is nonsense. We're part of the ecology not a
stress to it.
> Therefore a benefit.
What benefit?
If the parents are able to be good for their biological children but not
for
adopted one then there is not benefit, there is a loss.
> Perhaps it's a suffering, but perhaps they at least had some joy
> during that period they might never have known otherwise. Ultimately,
> being an abandoned child means suffering one way or another. At least
> if somebody chooses to adopt rather than have a new toy, the world
> benefits where it really matters.
>
> All of us, no matter great or small, our sufferings will pass soon
> enough. But the damage we do to the world, that we pass on to the next
> generation, will not so easily go away. The choice is between being
> selfish for our petty selves or to sacrifice (if it is even one) for
> the long term greater good.
First we have to know what damage we do. And if the cures are not worse
than
the damage to begin with.
The child reducing movements in developed ****ries are a stupidity. As
they
do not influence a squat 3rd world's "kid factories" where population
growth
is based and have immediate negative effects for their own community.
rgds
\SK
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