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ORIGINAL: subtee

~FR

Will the outfits maybe be something like this?

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ORIGINAL: Dubbelganger

@Term: I agree, the ultimate problem is overpopulation. Ironically, it is the availability of extremely cheap energy which allows overpop. The "Green Revolution" in agriculture is the product of cheap feedstocks for chemical fertilizers. That allowed cheap food, which created the population explosion.

I think INdia and CHina are well and truly fucked, because they both have exceeded the carrying capacity of their ecosystems. I think that when chemical fertilizers become too expensive to support industrial agriculture, there will be food riots, and ultimately mass famine.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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ORIGINAL: Dubbelganger

@Term: I agree, the ultimate problem is overpopulation. Ironically, it is the availability of extremely cheap energy which allows overpop. The "Green Revolution" in agriculture is the product of cheap feedstocks for chemical fertilizers. That allowed cheap food, which created the population explosion.

I think INdia and CHina are well and truly fucked, because they both have exceeded the carrying capacity of their ecosystems. I think that when chemical fertilizers become too expensive to support industrial agriculture, there will be food riots, and ultimately mass famine.

"And that will be bad because ......?" Thomas Robert Malthus _1798

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ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

The social policies needed for that would have to be geared toward attrition, and I don't think too many will agree with it. When China started discouraging people from having too many kids people were up in arms. But they had serious problems and serious solutions were needed.

First thing to do would be to make people pay for their own damn kids. No more AFDC, no more tax credits for anything that costs to raise a child. Pregnant ? Sure for a the the gov will pay your hospital bill, but if so it comes with free sterilization, package deal. And this happens if you don't pay up front or have insurance. Then your insurance goes up of course, but there is no corresponding tax break.

At best even the most draconian social policies to make any significant change without out and out murder are likely to take 40-50 years to produce results.

The ZPG people of years ago pretty much said "Don't go there" but here we are. They have been proven right.

T

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Postindustrial age ?  You get the word of the day award. Not that I am up on fiction, but the notion has been postulated more than once. It might just be time to take a more realistic view.

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ORIGINAL: Dubbelganger

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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ORIGINAL: Dubbelganger

@Term: I agree, the ultimate problem is overpopulation. Ironically, it is the availability of extremely cheap energy which allows overpop. The "Green Revolution" in agriculture is the product of cheap feedstocks for chemical fertilizers. That allowed cheap food, which created the population explosion.

I think INdia and CHina are well and truly fucked, because they both have exceeded the carrying capacity of their ecosystems. I think that when chemical fertilizers become too expensive to support industrial agriculture, there will be food riots, and ultimately mass famine.

"And that will be bad because ......?" Thomas Robert Malthus _1798

Well, I think a substantial reduction in the Earth's population is a good, even necessary, thing. I would prefer to achieve it through birth control and social policies rather than starvation. There's enough pain and misery on the planet.

Our fundamental problem is overpopulation, IMO.

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ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

Why so glum?

The govt will kill us when we get there.  And would you really want to live thru it?

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ORIGINAL: Aneirin

The question is, would we have a shortage or arable food, if it wasn't for the fact that a hefty quantity of land that is available for arable product, is used to grow animal feed, so a minority of the world can buy and eat cheap meat. We are not carnivores, why do we feel the need to eat meat. Cut the meat consumption and free up land for human food, then maybe we might have less cow farts fucking up our atmosphere, not to mention human farts from meat slowly being digested in a system not designed for digesting meat.

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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ORIGINAL: Aneirin

The question is, would we have a shortage or arable food, if it wasn't for the fact that a hefty quantity of land that is available for arable product, is used to grow animal feed, so a minority of the world can buy and eat cheap meat. We are not carnivores, why do we feel the need to eat meat. Cut the meat consumption and free up land for human food, then maybe we might have less cow farts fucking up our atmosphere, not to mention human farts from meat slowly being digested in a system not designed for digesting meat.

I truly do not understand your comment: "a system not designed for digesting meat"

First, I haven't seen the design prints and models. Evolution maybe???

Secondly, what was all that hunter/gatherer culture? Did they fail to get the message?

Thirdly, what is it with all those enzymes that digest protein?

I wonder if you are not making a political statement rather than one based upon physiology.

Would appreciate more detail. Thanks.

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ORIGINAL: Silence8

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ORIGINAL: vincentML

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ORIGINAL: Aneirin

The question is, would we have a shortage or arable food, if it wasn't for the fact that a hefty quantity of land that is available for arable product, is used to grow animal feed, so a minority of the world can buy and eat cheap meat. We are not carnivores, why do we feel the need to eat meat. Cut the meat consumption and free up land for human food, then maybe we might have less cow farts fucking up our atmosphere, not to mention human farts from meat slowly being digested in a system not designed for digesting meat.

I truly do not understand your comment: "a system not designed for digesting meat"

First, I haven't seen the design prints and models. Evolution maybe???

Secondly, what was all that hunter/gatherer culture? Did they fail to get the message?

Thirdly, what is it with all those enzymes that digest protein?

I wonder if you are not making a political statement rather than one based upon physiology.

Would appreciate more detail. Thanks.

The cost of raising animals to eat is (or would be) dramatically higher than that of raising plants to eat (were it not for government subsidies).

People from other countries who come to the U.S. are usually pretty shocked than our vegetables are more expensive than our meat products -- for good reason, because it's ridiculous.

Not to mention all the ugly people. And the healthcare costs. And the dependency on oil produced by concentration-camp-food-production.

And the trade policies that directly relate to starvation abroad.

A small amount of meat can deal with all the extraneous factors that you emphasize.

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ORIGINAL: Vaughner

The overwhelming majority of methods to produce electricity come down to one very simple concept....boil large quantities of water to create steam that spins a turbine. Coal, Oil, even Nuclear all function on this premise. So long as we have a means to generate heat, we can generate electricity.

I get so goddamn tired of hearing all these theories about how the planet is over-populated, and how it can't sustain any more people. Farmers right here in the US, the world's leading producer of food, are regularly paid NOT to produce food. Meanwhile enormous tracts of land in the US, Russia, India, Africa, Australia, are completely uninhabited due primarily to lack of drive to make them habitable. Even the great deserts can be made habitable, man has been doing it for thousands of years.

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In many countries where the population outstrips the means, it is not for lack of resources, but for the presence of those who horde them from the masses. When a population truly outstrips its local capacity, the end result is inevitably immigration and/or war.

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Not to mention no one has ever explained to me why if you pump an oil-well dry, cap it, and come back in 50 years there is oil in it again. (Never heard that one on the news did you?)

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Though if oil does start to become hard to come by you'll see renewed interest in fission power, additional funding for fusion power, and many of these superfulous "nature preserves" containing low-sulpher coal and oil that were closed off to appease the environmentalists will transform...the elk and the caribou will just have to deal.

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Not to mention with countries like China that have a severe excess of males vs females, history shows us that it is a self-correcting problem. If a population begins to outgrow it's means it often corrects itself well before said means is exhausted.

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Civilization will collapse if and when 2 things are perfected, The Holodeck, and the Replicator. When the latter replaces everyone's job, that which has predicated the development of all civilization will be gone. When someone invents the former, when men can have all the horny naked women, endless football games, and battles between ninjas and pirates they could want, meanwhile while women have all the chocolate, expectation-free footrubs, and doting they could want...there will be no motivation in life beyond keeping power to the holodeck.

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I'm not aware that agricultural subsidies favor livestock production over plants for human consumption. Don't you think end user demand may be a factor?

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ORIGINAL: Vaughner

Not to mention no one has ever explained to me why if you pump an oil-well dry, cap it, and come back in 50 years there is oil in it again. (Never heard that one on the news did you?)

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Though if oil does start to become hard to come by you'll see renewed interest in fission power, additional funding for fusion power, and many of these superfulous "nature preserves" containing low-sulpher coal and oil that were closed off to appease the environmentalists will transform...the elk and the caribou will just have to deal.