Tired of all the dicks in the world? Science may have found an solution.

[Ajay]

It's a tough break for the human race. On the plus side, we don't need to worry about climate change anymore, or pollution in general.

Nah, it just means we have two catastrophic problems facing mankind. Sort of like having an earthquake in the middle of a hurricane - except a million times worse.

 

[Pohemi]

...except a million times worse.

And widespread, and pervasive. An earthquake is very localized, but plastics have invaded every environment and ecosystem on the planet.

 

[cytg111]

It's a tough break for the human race. On the plus side, we don't need to worry about climate change anymore, or pollution in general.

Relax. Its science. In a second you'll remember that you dont believe in any of that crap. Here. Have a cookie.

 

[soundforbjt]

It's a tough break for the human race. On the plus side, we don't need to worry about climate change anymore, or pollution in general.

Spoken like a true Fox pundit/(R) Rep, (R) Sen...congrats?

 

[Greenman]

Spoken like a true Fox pundit/(R) Rep, (R) Sen...congrats?

You're an idiot.

 

[Jaskalas]

It's a tough break for the human race. On the plus side, we don't need to worry about climate change anymore, or pollution in general.

While I expect most people, if not everyone, will suffer some sort of ill effect. I do not expect our ability to reproduce to stop entirely. Being harmed does not automatically mean extinction. For example, lead poisoning.

Whether society holds together despite these challenges is another matter. You've seen what a soft virus does to us. Having few people with children would be an interesting twist on our notion of growth and the pyramid scheme modern economics hides behind.

 

[Moonbeam]

While I expect most people, if not everyone, will suffer some sort of ill effect. I do not expect our ability to reproduce to stop entirely. Being harmed does not automatically mean extinction. For example, lead poisoning.

Whether society holds together despite these challenges is another matter. You've seen what a soft virus does to us. Having few people with children would be an interesting twist on our notion of growth and the pyramid scheme modern economics hides behind.

Good rebuttal to Greenman. Climate change will kill the few who somehow manage to breed. Naturally the notion of worry can mean different things, I suppose.
personally, I could give a shit about human extinction as it just means it could take off a few years of my life. I just worry in the sense that all the blessings and gifts that life brought me, all the joys I have experienced via being, the sense of infinite love for all things I have felt, by experiences of oneness with everything will not be there for future generations of children. What may never be again will never be again but it seems so sad to me. Billions of years for God to awaken only to go back to sleep.

 

[Greenman]

Good rebuttal to Greenman. Climate change will kill the few who somehow manage to breed. Naturally the notion of worry can mean different things, I suppose.
personally, I could give a shit about human extinction as it just means it could take off a few years of my life. I just worry in the sense that all the blessings and gifts that life brought me, all the joys I have experienced via being, the sense of infinite love for all things I have felt, by experiences of oneness with everything will not be there for future generations of children. What may never be again will never be again but it seems so sad to me. Billions of years for God to awaken only to go back to sleep.

It's actually not a rebuttal at all.
Vastly reduced population solves a lot of problems. While it's not a solution that makes people happy, it's a hell of a lot better than a multitude of other solutions. We don't need twenty billion people, we don't need never ending growth. Sustainability is the key to long term survival and quality of life, and the easiest method of achieving that is to have fewer people.

My original comment was obviously tongue in cheek, and of course some idiot has to pretend to being outraged because I'm seen as a threat to the accepted P&N dogma, but in the large scale view it's accurate. Reduce the population by 50% and we'll reduce consumption and pollution by the same amount. Having that happen by people dyeing of old age is far more pleasant than just about every other method.

 

[fskimospy]

It's actually not a rebuttal at all.
Vastly reduced population solves a lot of problems. While it's not a solution that makes people happy, it's a hell of a lot better than a multitude of other solutions. We don't need twenty billion people, we don't need never ending growth. Sustainability is the key to long term survival and quality of life, and the easiest method of achieving that is to have fewer people.

My original comment was obviously tongue in cheek, and of course some idiot has to pretend to being outraged because I'm seen as a threat to the accepted P&N dogma, but in the large scale view it's accurate. Reduce the population by 50% and we'll reduce consumption and pollution by the same amount. Having that happen by people dyeing of old age is far more pleasant than just about every other method.

If this is the case can you point me to a single time in history where population decline was a positive thing for a society? Is Japan better off now than it was ten years ago because its population is declining?

 

[Greenman]

If this is the case can you point me to a single time in history where population decline was a positive thing for a society? Is Japan better off now than it was ten years ago because its population is declining?

Can't point to a single case of that happening. But I can prove conclusively that never ending growth is impossible.
Why the fixation on ever increasing numbers? How many people is enough? Is it ten billion? Twenty? At what point do decide we've got exactly the right amount of people? Is China better off because of their vast population?
Never ending population growth is impossible, and catastrophic. So what's the the magic number? How many people should the planet have? Throw out a number and tell me why we should have that target. Then tell me how we stop at that point.

 

[Moonbeam]

It's actually not a rebuttal at all.
Vastly reduced population solves a lot of problems. While it's not a solution that makes people happy, it's a hell of a lot better than a multitude of other solutions. We don't need twenty billion people, we don't need never ending growth. Sustainability is the key to long term survival and quality of life, and the easiest method of achieving that is to have fewer people.

My original comment was obviously tongue in cheek, and of course some idiot has to pretend to being outraged because I'm seen as a threat to the accepted P&N dogma, but alasin the large scale view it's accurate. Reduce the population by 50% and we'll reduce consumption and pollution by the same amount. Having that happen by people dyeing of old age is far more pleasant than just about every other method.

Well I got the tongue in cheek aspect of your post and appreciated your sense of humor. But you did manage to trigger folks and in my opinion at least, Jaskalas did provide a logical counter to the point you made in irony.

Ando know too, my sympathy for your views.

As the primary driver for a number of family members, and a person who grew up driving on empty roads, l have to confess to terrible sins. I have for a long time before our current COVID crisis, whenever stuck in traffic, driven my passengers crazy by screaming at the top of my lungs for God to send a plague to wipe out 90% of the population. Be careful what you wish for.

 

[fskimospy]

Can't point to a single case of that happening. But I can prove conclusively that never ending growth is impossible.
Why the fixation on ever increasing numbers? How many people is enough? Is it ten billion? Twenty? At what point do decide we've got exactly the right amount of people? Is China better off because of their vast population?
Never ending population growth is impossible, and catastrophic. So what's the the magic number? How many people should the planet have? Throw out a number and tell me why we should have that target. Then tell me how we stop at that point.

There is no limit. While never ending growth might be impossible in some theoretical sense for all practical purposes infinite growth is achievable.

Calls for population decline represent a failure of imagination and a preference for a stagnant and and decaying society.

 

[Greenman]

There is no limit. While never ending growth might be impossible in some theoretical sense for all practical purposes infinite growth is achievable.

Calls for population decline represent a failure of imagination and a preference for a stagnant and and decaying society.

That's an insane statement. With current technology, and a finite amount of arable land to grow crops (3.5 billion acres) the upper population limit appears to be ten billion. Along with that number comes the extinction of many species, and a pollution load that's entirely unsustainable.
That number also puts us on the knife edge. A major drought and people will be starving to death by the millions.
What you view as progress I see as the most horrible future imaginable.

 

[fskimospy]

That's an insane statement. With current technology, and a finite amount of arable land to grow crops (3.5 billion acres) the upper population limit appears to be ten billion. Along with that number comes the extinction of many species, and a pollution load that's entirely unsustainable.
That number also puts us on the knife edge. A major drought and people will be starving to death by the millions.
What you view as progress I see as the most horrible future imaginable.

Again, this represents a failure of imagination and a future of stagnation and decay. You may want to live in a decaying world but I don’t. I imagine it’s a similar motivation to the anti-development stance people have when it comes to housing. Change is uncertain, and uncertainty is scary.

Technology advances, we can live on new planets, we can grow crops in new ways, etc. There is, for all intents and purposes, no limit.

 

[Jaskalas]

It's actually not a rebuttal at all.

Not entirely spelled out, but logically there is a rebuttal to be found. You suggest we need not concern ourselves with the other crises we face. But I say we do need to face them, as "we" are at least likely to survive the direct impacts of plastic. However, the stress our poisoning may cause a great challenge to our financial and social norms. Like the virus challenged them. Like Climate Change will also challenge them. And we won't really "survive" if our society collapses to these stress factors. Especially as they pile up on top of one another.

Heck, plastic alone may do it - if we are incapable of letting go of ever increasing debt buying. Maintaining growth forever is not a plan, it is a suicide pact.

 

[Jaskalas]

OTOH, we apparently have half the sperm count our fathers had.

1. Do we have any reason to believe that reduces fertility?
2. Or if that the number will continue in decline and approach near zero?

 

[Moonbeam]

Again, this represents a failure of imagination and a future of stagnation and decay. You may want to live in a decaying world but I don’t. I imagine it’s a similar motivation to the anti-development stance people have when it comes to housing. Change is uncertain, and uncertainty is scary.

Technology advances, we can live on new planets, we can grow crops in new ways, etc. There is, for all intents and purposes, no limit.

And if these thoughts are presented as factual but fail in an understanding of human nature with reference to our innate biologically derived emotional needs, something easily invisible to people who do not know they do not know what they feel? Who then might be guilty of real imagination. I hear that crowding rats makes them mean. I hear too that a lot of attention is paid in architecture to open spaces. You always push the issue of increased population density as the solution to homelessness on people who seek privacy and personal space.

Mulla Nasrudin was once near the solution to managing the food needs of his herd of donkies, but just at the point where he eliminated the problem of feeding them they all died. Perhaps you lack something within that makes you think like that. Reason needs tempering with feeling.

The brain processes logically and linearly and by holistic intuitive realization. People can get out of balance here. Western civilization fails miserably by over rationality.

 

[sportage]

I think we seen a clue during the Trump rallies.
\

 

[fskimospy]

And if these thoughts are presented as factual but fail in an understanding of human nature with reference to our innate biologically derived emotional needs, something easily invisible to people who do not know they do not know what they feel? Who then might be guilty of real imagination. I hear that crowding rats makes them mean. I hear too that a lot of attention is paid in architecture to open spaces. You always push the issue of increased population density as the solution to homelessness on people who seek privacy and personal space.

Mulla Nasrudin was once near the solution to managing the food needs of his herd of donkies, but just at the point where he eliminated the problem of feeding them they all died. Perhaps you lack something within that makes you think like that. Reason needs tempering with feeling.

The brain processes logically and linearly and by holistic intuitive realization. People can get out of balance here. Western civilization fails miserably by over rationality.

Something that really stands out to me here - you’re right that crowding makes people unhappy but density is the ANSWER to crowding, not the cause.

Right across the street from my apartment is a series of small homes and being the nosy asshole I am when they have their doors open to the street I look in. What I see in there is 6 or more people living in a studio apartment because housing prices are so extreme in New York due to lack of building that this is all they can afford. Southern California sees the same crowding. I’m sure these individuals would love privacy and personal space but NIMBYs use the government to deny it to them.

So really, what’s more crowded, a 100 story building with one person per story or a one story building with 50 people in a room?

 

[Jaskalas]

Technology advances, we can live on new planets, we can....

That will require some mighty leaps in technology. But how do we live long enough to get there?

So really, what’s more crowded, a 100 story building with one person per story or a one story building with 50 people in a room?

What is the point of building more, if you are just going to import even more people to crowd it back up again?

Cut that population in half. Then maybe you don't have to tell them they cannot eat meat to appease, what appears to be, some wanton destruction of our way of life. Speaking of which... HOW the bloody hell is the Southwest supposed to support millions more people? The fresh water for it, quite simply, does not exist.

Did we go over this before? I think someone's reply was agriculture was to blame. As if we should dramatically reduce the food we produce to feed our growing population. Or maybe the idea was to greatly restrict to only grow less thirsty crops. Further controlling our diet after you cut out meat.

Americans have grown accustomed to a way of life. While accommodations are going to be required for various issues, like plastic pollution, and climate change. Do you really want population increase to dogpile on top of all that? Do you imagine there is no breaking point for our people, no sacrifice too great just so we can run our ponzi scheme a few decades longer?

My life time has seen 100 million people enter this country. If I live twice as long I'll see another 100 million more. That is diametrically opposed to a sustainable future. An existential danger I must oppose.

 

[Moonbeam]

Something that really stands out to me here - you’re right that crowding makes people unhappy but density is the ANSWER to crowding, not the cause.

Right across the street from my apartment is a series of small homes and being the nosy asshole I am when they have their doors open to the street I look in. What I see in there is 6 or more people living in a studio apartment because housing prices are so extreme in New York due to lack of building that this is all they can afford. Southern California sees the same crowding. I’m sure these individuals would love privacy and personal space but NIMBYs use the government to deny it to them.

So really, what’s more crowded, a 100 story building with one person per story or a one story building with 50 people in a room?

I bought a house with a yard because I didn’t want to live in an apartment anymore. I bought it at a time when prices were rising so fast a year later I would not have been able to afford it. I bought where I grew up to be near my parents. Now, of course I am worth vast sums of money, beyond what billions of people will ever see. How clever of me. I wish I had bought a farm instead, one maybe worth little more now than then. I can’t spend my house at the store or pay the taxes on it. But my life is now here I live and I play a role in family support. The people who jam up like sardines in NYC or LA could have more room in Texas but want to live as they do instead. But they are not going to move in with me. It’s not my fault I could afford to live where I do when I bought because everybody and their brother hadn’t decided by the thousands they wanted to live on top of me. I did what I had to do to have a small home and a bit of land. I would have never done so knowing that years later someone would vote to force me out to put up a sardine can.

All those who want to dense up on my land will scream murder when others years later will want to run them out to build something even denser.

And kids in an apartment building. I remember that misery.

 

[1prophet]

Cut that population in half. Then maybe you don't have to tell them they cannot eat meat to appease, what appears to be, some wanton destruction of our way of life. Speaking of which... HOW the bloody hell is the Southwest supposed to support millions more people? The fresh water for it, quite simply, does not exist.

Americans have no problem building pipelines for dangerous gas and petroleum products crisscrossing the country not to mention roads and rails for trains,

but you can't build pipelines like the Romans built aqueducts to help the states that have excess water and are flood prone to states that are drought prone

 

[fskimospy]

I bought a house with a yard because I didn’t want to live in an apartment anymore. I bought it at a time when prices were rising so fast a year later I would not have been able to afford it. I bought where I grew up to be near my parents. Now, of course I am worth vast sums of money, beyond what billions of people will ever see. How clever of me. I wish I had bought a farm instead, one maybe worth little more now than then. I can’t spend my house at the store or pay the taxes on it. But my life is now here I live and I play a role in family support. The people who jam up like sardines in NYC or LA could have more room in Texas but want to live as they do instead. But they are not going to move in with me. It’s not my fault I could afford to live where I do when I bought because everybody and their brother hadn’t decided by the thousands they wanted to live on top of me. I did what I had to do to have a small home and a bit of land. I would have never done so knowing that years later someone would vote to force me out to put up a sardine can.

All those who want to dense up on my land will scream murder when others years later will want to run them out to build something even denser.

And kids in an apartment building. I remember that misery.

You didn’t address my point though. Building more would make things less crowded, not more.

 

[K1052]

Did we go over this before? I think someone's reply was agriculture was to blame. As if we should dramatically reduce the food we produce to feed our growing population. Or maybe the idea was to greatly restrict to only grow less thirsty crops. Further controlling our diet after you cut out meat.

That was maybe me. People aren't going to starve if we stop flood irrigating nut tree groves. Because of an arcane water rights structure those people can waste much of the water supply on high value crops that are extremely water intensive where they probably should not be grown.

 

[K1052]

The people who jam up like sardines in NYC or LA could have more room in Texas but want to live as they do instead.

I think I threw up in my mouth a lil bit.