2011-04-29, 01:10 | Link #61 | |
blinded by blood
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If we don't expand beyond Earth, we may well become extinct or be forced to enact massive depopulation measures--either officially sanctioned or through terribly destructive wars--in order to prevent going extinct. We're basically doomed if we don't expand, but if we do and we do it well, we're virtually ensured existence in perpetuity.
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2011-04-29, 01:40 | Link #64 | ||
You're Hot, Cupcake
Join Date: Aug 2008
Age: 42
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Inevitably it will be. Forge the Sun imploding 5 billion years from now. Well before that, resources will be spread too thin between too many people.
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1. A lottery. Luck of the draw. 2. The rich/influential/those with proven relative worth are allowed to live while 'the surplus population' is exterminated. 3. War by the biggers countries to take things by might. U.S. vs China vs India vs Russia is rather plausible. 4. Death games made into entertainment, Team Fortress 2 style. Quote:
War is usually the biggest source of techonogical progression. But the costs always outweigh the benefits unless you're an arms dealer. And the thing is people haven't really learnt their lesson from last century. You just get the feeling a third big war is coming. As soon as one major power gets into crisis, it will happen.
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2011-04-29, 01:48 | Link #65 |
Onii-chan~
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'It is good that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it'
- General Robert E. Lee Since people aren't dying in the massive numbers that they used to in war, we are no longer seeing the cost and the sacrifice that must be undertaken when people take up arms. When this happens, war becomes commonplace, and eventually, routine. The great thing about war as population control is that it generally takes the lives of those yet to start a family of their own, preventing a whole group of potential offspring. It may sound cold, but when you reduce everything to numbers (especially with finite resources), everything seems cold.
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2011-04-29, 02:11 | Link #66 |
blinded by blood
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Yeah, no thanks. I'd rather take all those hundreds of billions of dollars spent on killing people, and spend them on applying Sammy Hagar logic to the speed limit of the universe.
Edit: All inanity aside (including FTL travel, which may or may not be physically impossible) take those hundreds of billions and use them to solve the cost problem of putting shit into orbit. Once we make getting to space cheaper, it'll spark an explosion of development.
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2011-04-29, 02:21 | Link #68 | |
You're Hot, Cupcake
Join Date: Aug 2008
Age: 42
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The world needs someone like him again. No one has come close to having the guts, wit and black humour Bill Hicks had. He was considered a comedian and a philosopher with good reason. Unfortunately, the majority of people will never able to see the world and other people in such a way.
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2011-04-29, 03:28 | Link #69 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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Most of the increased population are from the poor nations. And the poor don't use much energy because they can't afford them. The more wealth a population has, the more energy they demand, but the lower their birth rates would be. Population explosion is now debunked. Yes, finite energy sources will one day run out, but it has nothing to do with the size of the population. Your dreams of mass organised killings is nothing more than movie plotlines. We would move into the stars when we need to. But if we don't figure out how to live on Earth sustainably, there would be no way we can survive on an alien planet or on a space colony ship. So in that sense trying to go to Space wouldn't solve our problem; if we live sustainably then we never really have to leave Earth. If we don't live sustainably then the rest of the universe wouldn't be big enough for us to pillage forever.
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2011-04-29, 04:03 | Link #70 |
blinded by blood
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Well, that's good news.
Wars are pretty much stupid penis-waving, they aren't my dreams and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't put words in my mouth. Also "sustainable" is such a misused word it makes me sick. What is "sustainable" anyway? The only way we can ever reach a point of complete sustainability is to obtain virtually unlimited energy. That cannot be done by burning things. Hence, space development, to get those big power-collecting arrays grabbing big chunks of otherwise-wasted solar energy.
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2011-04-29, 06:29 | Link #71 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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Ultimately the sci-fi way to get near infinite energy is to simply build a mega-structure around a spare sun from another solar system. A sun is just a very large fusion powerplant. Encase it would mean we get its total output. Sustainability is about using energy that can be replenished. Infinite energy is one way of getting it, but that's far harder than simply making sure we secure an energy supply that takes shorter time to make than to use. For all intent and purposes coal and oil are actually infinite; they are regenerated by Earth's biosphere. But since the rate of creating new coal and oil naturally takes tens of thousands of years more than it takes to burn them, we would run out of sufficient quantities of them. So sustainability means trying to find an artificial means of generating fuel that are created in a quantity that match or surpass our consumption rate. "Infinite" energy is not needed, as we don't consume infinite amounts ourselves. By the way, the current solar panel designs means it is not possible to build a giant solar powerplant in Space. The amount of silver and rare-earth metals needed means we can't make them at that macro scale even if we get up there.
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2011-04-29, 06:51 | Link #72 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Food is the operative problem facing the world, I'd say. We got lucky in the last century with green revolution, but there's only so much land out there to grow food on, not only that but we need to preserve as much as possible for the purpose of forestry, to absorb emissions and preserve natural habitats.
In this respect I'm totally opposed to "organic farming" as it's a terribly innefficient way to grow enough food to feed the world's population. In the further long term we need to restrain population growth, particularly in Asia. I think the only solution is increased wealth all around the world, in western countries population growth is very low (sub replacement in Europe). In this respect the world is on the right track, I think worldwide economic inequality is on the decrease, particularly in South America and many parts of Asia. But it's to be expected that food prices are rising: 1. The world's population is growing, while the supply is not, when demand increases with regard to supply, prices rise 2. There have been several droughts, crop failures recently, causing a drop in number of crop harvested. Also crop diseases like Wheat Rust. 3. Increasing land demand for biofuels and other uses. 4. Certain lands are suffering decreases in fertility due to poor farming practices. All of the above are causing decreased supply of food, and no one is directly to blame for any of it. We're reaching the limit that this planet can support, at least with current technology. GM crops could improve things a lot. |
2011-04-29, 07:44 | Link #73 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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Farmland is being out-competed for land. In the Middle East, farmland is used to grow poppies for the drug trade. In China, farmland is being destroyed to create more factories, as it just brings in more cash. Eventually rising food prices would lead to increased production to meet demand. But the lag is what caused the problem. If you built a shoe factory on top of your farmland, you can't revert it back to food production even if you wanted to. What it boils down to, is that there is "just enough" farms to keep everyone fed, as any more production than that isn't profitable to the big companies. But as soon as a disaster hit, like a bad harvest, or a fire, there would be a big gap in supply because there isn't any slack in the system. We haven't hit a limit at all, we just restricted our own food production intentionally for maximum profit.
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2011-04-29, 07:46 | Link #74 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Land of the rising sun
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At the end we may all be eating Soylent Green. Last edited by Tri-ring; 2011-04-29 at 08:00. |
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2011-04-29, 07:52 | Link #75 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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2011-04-29, 08:16 | Link #76 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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The problem is that it is difficult to expand agriculture beyond what it is now, Most of the fertile land that is not already being used for agriculture is currently used for forestry, which would be a bad idea to cut down on further. And it's not just land that's limited, more accurately it's water for that land as well. In Europe it's not too bad, we have loads of water, but pretty much all of our usable flat land is already used for agriculture anyway, but in asia, where the vast majority of the population is, and the vast majority of arable land is located, water is extremely limited. The likes of China and India are almost at the limit of land they can still use for agriculture, when a crop failure hits those regions, as wheat rust did recently, we get the food price rises we're getting right now. The green revolution is the only reason these places have not experienced severe famine in the last 40 years. Now there are other agricultural products as well, but these are often just as nessecary as food for the global economy, and they use the same land and water resources. And it tends to be the same farmers growing poppies as wheat, they just see poppies sell for more... I think the earth, with current resources and technology, can comfortably grow enough food for 9 billion people, but things are already reaching an impasse. Look at the riots in the middle east, those were largely driven by rising food prices, which we can take in the west, but the poor throughout the developing world cannot. Also the reason western farmers need subsidies is to compete with farmers in other parts of the world, who can work for far less. On the other hand, if subsidies were removed it would probably make things better in the long run. |
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2011-04-29, 15:52 | Link #77 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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2011-04-29, 21:38 | Link #78 | |
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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Yeah....apparently a hungry man is an angry man. And a hungry woman.....is more dangerous than a nuclear device.
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2011-04-29, 23:41 | Link #79 |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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On the matter of farmland, I remember it was mentioned that Detroit used to be a farming community.
There are now talks of reviving agriculture there now, because there isn't much of a manufacture sector left in that city. Of course there is worries that the land is no longer usable for that, but Detroit has already fallen on such hard times they might as well try anything.
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