Well Scott==its a meaningless universe so neither more, nor less, nor none make the universe better or worse.  But for those actually living on the earth, there are going to be more people all the time until there are less, so it only makes SENSE to provide them with what they need to be as happy as possible.

As to your 3rd-4th level resource depletion, I will just assume a paradigm shift to new technology.  Isn't hydroponics going to come anyway for a variety of reasons?  Meat from a faucet anyone?

The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades.......and then everything goes dark.

Ha, ha.

Get the largest cage you can..
Get a female and Male mouse.
Let them populate adinfinitem.
Feed them as much as they can eat...
Keep feeding them..

See what happens..

=====
I could change the title..
but all it is, is a debate.  Its going SIDE WAYS...but still a debate.

Well Scott==its a meaningless universe so neither more, nor less, nor none make the universe better or worse.  But for those actually living on the earth, there are going to be more people all the time until there are less, so it only makes SENSE to provide them with what they need to be as happy as possible.

As to your 3rd-4th level resource depletion, I will just assume a paradigm shift to new technology.  Isn't hydroponics going to come anyway for a variety of reasons?  Meat from a faucet anyone?

The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades.......and then everything goes dark.

Ha, ha.

Hmm... Changing your tune there bobbo? Before you said more people is better. Now you just want to provide for those who are here. Very different statement indeed.

How to provide ... well, the fewer there are, the better they can be provided for. So, fewer is better. Family planning should be strongly encouraged. Women should be educated and brought into the work force.

Hydroponics? Doesn't that require fresh water? Isn't that one of the many things we're depleting? Don't the plants still need other nutrients in the water? From where do they come?

Meat from a faucet? Hmm... what a happy world you envision. I need to wear shades ... very very dark shades ... just to avoid seeing Squeez Bacon coming out of my tap. Yecch!! 'scuse me while I puke!

: Misanthropic Scott  February 18, 2011, 04:15:19 AM

: ECA  February 15, 2011, 09:59:21 AM

What is the 1 product, that over its history(short or long) that has caused the MOST damage to society?

<snark>Humans</snark>

Seriously, must it be a product? How about an invention? I'd go with agriculture.

MS,
good point.
But, until recently, the last 100 years...  The man power needed to DO Agra, was astounding.  With the Advent of Vehicles, the Time and manpower, DROPPED and you could do MORE with less.
And with Automation:
They are now looking at using GPS guided Vehicles to do the work.

More with less? That's good since we've already lost 10% of the arable land on the planet to desertification. Maybe it's more now with the state Australia's been in lately. At any given time on the planet, we maintain a food surplus. We used to have about 270 days of food in reserve. Now, with food production not keeping pace with population growth, we're down to 90 days and falling. More with less? Well, perhaps our food is still increasing. But, it's not keeping pace with population growth. So, we're in trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Population.

ECA--irritates me each time I read your too minimal Topic Heading.  Could you add to it a little bit?==future generations will thank you.  Use mine, or make it better?

Thanks.

Excellent suggestion bobbo and thanks for making the change ECA. I noticed it immediately too.

: bobbo  February 18, 2011, 05:13:51 PM

Well Scott==its a meaningless universe so neither more, nor less, nor none make the universe better or worse.  But for those actually living on the earth, there are going to be more people all the time until there are less, so it only makes SENSE to provide them with what they need to be as happy as possible.

As to your 3rd-4th level resource depletion, I will just assume a paradigm shift to new technology.  Isn't hydroponics going to come anyway for a variety of reasons?  Meat from a faucet anyone?

The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades.......and then everything goes dark.

Ha, ha.

Get the largest cage you can..
Get a female and Male mouse.
Let them populate adinfinitem.
Feed them as much as they can eat...
Keep feeding them..

See what happens..

=====
I could change the title..
but all it is, is a debate.  Its going SIDE WAYS...but still a debate.

Interesting thought experiment. I suspect you'll run out of food rather quickly and have a very large number of dead mice on your hands. Mmmm..... Mouse: The other other other white meat.

MS,
Iv looked around the net, and EVEN with the geopolitical Monsters out there..
With the USA supplying a GOOD 30% of the worlds food.
WITH GMO products for CORPS to make TONS of money, and 10 times the crops..
The estimate at this time is about 15% starvation.

In the next ten years TUNA will be decimated..
MOST fish crops are on the point of NOT being able to populate fast enough to replenish WHAT is taken/fished.
aquifers in the N. american continent are being HIT HARD.  Those 10x crops TAKE WATER.  And I wont EVEn mention the problems with soil/trees/WIND..

WE COULD take over Mexico and turn it into a TOTAL FARM LAND..
But, as I said with mice, and NO-ONE got the hint..when you get to many mice, they START to eat each other..  you have to get MORE cages...but we dont have another planet to MOVE TO..

The EXTRA food stocks kept were for CORPS to back themselves up..incase the worse happened...and many areas have been hit hard, this winter.  BUT, as that reserve DROPS, so does the price of FOOD rise..  WHICh is interesting..
1. the farmers arnt getting MORE MONEY..
2. EXPORTS arent being paid HIGHER..
3. PRICES falling, only means MORE PROFIT.  not that the price of food will go down.

MS,
Iv looked around the net, and EVEN with the geopolitical Monsters out there..
With the USA supplying a GOOD 30% of the worlds food.
WITH GMO products for CORPS to make TONS of money, and 10 times the crops..
The estimate at this time is about 15% starvation.

That really is an optimistic projection. Without some form of voluntary and conscious planning on our part to stop the growth and begin a slow steady reduction to sustainable levels, I see no reason that the graph of human population wouldn't look just like the graph of the population of introduced reindeer on St. Matthew's Island with six more zeros on the ends of the numbers. (This was an unintentional real world experiment like your mice.)



We might be lucky enough to maintain the population at whatever it levels off at. The reindeer did not. After they dropped to 42, they ultimately died out.

In the next ten years TUNA will be decimated..
MOST fish crops are on the point of NOT being able to populate fast enough to replenish WHAT is taken/fished.
aquifers in the N. american continent are being HIT HARD.  Those 10x crops TAKE WATER.  And I wont EVEn mention the problems with soil/trees/WIND..

Yup. I'm not sure of the exact timeframe for tuna in particular. I believe the current estimate is for a commercially dead global ocean around 2048.

WE COULD take over Mexico and turn it into a TOTAL FARM LAND..

Really? With global warming? I would expect it to be too arid to grow much of anything. I just hope they can still grow agave.

But, as I said with mice, and NO-ONE got the hint..when you get to many mice, they START to eat each other..  you have to get MORE cages...but we dont have another planet to MOVE TO..

Hmm... I hadn't heard of that in mice. Interesting. I'd expect it from more omnivorous species like rats and humans. Incidentally, whenever there has been civilizational collapse in human societies, I believe cannibalism has been documented. It doesn't stave off the starvation very long and has serious health consequences. The health consequences may be even greater now with mercury and PCBs in our top-level predator bodies.

The EXTRA food stocks kept were for CORPS to back themselves up..incase the worse happened...and many areas have been hit hard, this winter.  BUT, as that reserve DROPS, so does the price of FOOD rise..  WHICh is interesting..
1. the farmers arnt getting MORE MONEY..
2. EXPORTS arent being paid HIGHER..
3. PRICES falling, only means MORE PROFIT.  not that the price of food will go down.

Also raising the price of food is bad policy on first generation biofuels. Cellulosic may not be bad. But, corn ethanol??!!? Please! Even the sugar cane widely used in Brazil, while much better, still puts feeding poor people in competition with fueling the tanks of rich people. This can't be good.

Much of the difficulties we have are two fold in this world...
What advances have occurred that have hurt the JOB FORCE..
An some admit this one..
FOOD as a weapon...

Scott--how much technology do the deer have to call on?  I think "one day" not too long from now we will have unlimited cheap clean power.  Not too cheap to ignore the cost of production, but it will be a known steady non-variable generally available around the world.  With that comes everything else to what will be the "carrying capapcity" of the Earth.  And as you have NOTHING to backup your overly pessimistic low projection, I will take the same attitude with my HIGH projection.  What else does "power" mean?

I thought one of the pushes towards hydroponics is that you recycled the water and the need/waste of nutrients was greatly reduced.  Just one tech==and with free power supplying sunlight, transport costs reduced as farming is now done in multistory buildings right down town.

Technology:  powering the overpopulation of the Earth since......that iron bridge.

 This DEBATE thread suffers from the fundamental flaws of incomplete definition and description. First it is necessary to define what you call DAMAGE, and also what you mean by PRODUCT. Second it is conventional to set limits/boundaries on the scope of the DEBATE. No wonder it is going"sideways"! Please be specific, thanx!

OK, I'll bite:  why are you being so obtuse?

this isn't "your" thread and if ECA is happy, why not allow him that shred of illusion for as long as it lasts?

rather CS to point out a "fault" without providing the remedy?  Go ahead and define/limit the discussion as you will--will others want to continue THAT debate?

I've been going to post a few times that your models were rather skanky==but why be negative?  Be positive, don't worry, be Happy.

I thought one of the pushes towards hydroponics is that you recycled the water and the need/waste of nutrients was greatly reduced.  Just one tech==and with free power supplying sunlight, transport costs reduced as farming is now done in multistory buildings right down town.

You mean when you eat the plant, you go back and piss on the next one?

Yes. Hydroponics is a good thing. But, it's not magic.

This DEBATE thread suffers from the fundamental flaws of incomplete definition and description. First it is necessary to define what you call DAMAGE, and also what you mean by PRODUCT. Second it is conventional to set limits/boundaries on the scope of the DEBATE. No wonder it is going"sideways"! Please be specific, thanx!

It was a question that calls for opinion. Leaving it open ended has opened the discussion up to a wider variety of answers. I quite like the way this debate has gone.

Here's another try.

bobbo,

How about locks as the most damaging invention? Perhaps agriculture itself wasn't the problem but the side effect that it brought of locking up the food.

Personally, I'm sticking with agriculture as the root of most of humanity's problems, especially overpopulation, the root of so many other problems. But, I'm curious. Do you think locks would have been a better choice?

Locks?  Not standing alone.  You'd need to define your terms so as not to leave the discussion so wide open and variable!!!!!!

That said, you come awful close to what a lot of people lament:  fences. 

but back to your atavistic desire for low population numbers.  Agriculture forms the surplus food on which all other human activities depends, relevent here:  medicine and tv.  I don't think pre-agricultural man living in small groups keeping Tyrannosaurus Rex at bay with sharp sticks and fire is a better life than an arguably overcrowded world where I get my hemorrhoids excised and get to watch tv.  So, to follow my own meandering, the TWO worst developments in Human History are:  fee for service medicine, and the 3 minute variable commercial break on tv with elevated sound levels.  It all could be definitional though.

Ob,

Discussion and YOUR THOUGHTS, not mine..NOT my limitations.

First discover what others THINK and wish to discuss.
Those that have alternative ideas, MUST have a good debate for IT.  or they wouldnt bring it up(i WOULD HOPE).

WE grad each idea/thought/suggestion...and debate it.
Gather those few left...and think about them.
Maybe Rank them.

In my long life, I have always seem/thought there were/was MORE then 1 way of thinking/doing/seeing/solving things.

Its the same I have seen in (My opinion) GOOD science.  What works 1 way ALWAYS is reversible.  An Electric motor, reversed, is a Generator.

IF' you really want to work back in history..  we could suggest the the WEAPON was the worst thing.  but, I wont go there.  Weapons had a USE, and I DOUBT we would be here, without them.  They are something that SLOWED advancements down, but really didnt Dissuade MAN KIND.

Agro, in the last 80 years has SO CHANGED...but to what use?  we Feed the WHOLE of the USA.  Then we Feed 30% of the world on top.  WE dont goto other countries and FIX the Agro problems..  we SELL THEM FOOD.  for guns, for minerals, for EXPORTS, to force them into CAPITALISM and making PRODUCTS for the USA and others...from being a Agro community, independent of OTHERS, they sell their Souls, for FOOD..and forget about CROPS they used to make themselves.  They RUN to the nearest major metro, and SIT in shanty towns, because its EASIER to get the food, as their GOV, has problems(?) getting/releasing the food..

If you dont understand this.. Look up the past of the S. idaho Valley.  Its where I live.  The Gov backed farmers for 40 years, to Turn this area into farm land, from a Volcanic Desert plateau..  they found that Potatoes COULD be grown here.