Human Self-Loathing

[Sureboss]

What resources are we going to run out of? Food? Not for a long time. We could produce a ton more than we do now, it's dirt cheap, and there will be advances in food growing technology in the next 10 years guaranteed. Electricity? It either comes from the sun for free, or it comes from nuclear reactions. Either way, we're not running out. Water? Water is the most abundant substance on the planet. And with electricity, we've got that problem solved.

So what is it?

Solar energy is finite (or at least it will be for our whole existence), however, nuclear reactions need a fuel and uranium isn't finite is it?

 

[Venari]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#cite_note-IAEA-20060602-0

Most definitely finite, with a rising cost of extraction starting pretty soon, by the looks of it. One wonders whether the figure given there is taking into account the manifold increase in population (and thus energy usage) over that time period.

Some bright spark better sort fusion out quick.

 

[Dave A]

I think a big big part of the problem is greed. Too many are too greedy. With modern technology it's a frequently reported fact that we could feed the world, no one has to starve. The problem is no one will spend the money required to do that, and thoes that try to help a it are either not able to do enough or they are hindered by corruption in governments who's people they are trying to help.

Another aspect is war, in the last 100 years there has been a significant rise, well above any curve form past centuries in the number of wars and the number of people killed in thoes wars. Even if you take away WWI and WWII the number of wars and war related deaths in the last 100 years is astronomical and there doesn't seem to be any sign of that ending. As cushy as we have it now in the western world I don't think that we are creating a peaceful planet.

The sheer ammount of money spent on arms and the military reflects that. Imagine if that money was spent on helping people. Ofcourse I'm not preaching, we know that no country can just halt military spending, they'd get lynched by thier enemies, but that fact simply highlights that the world is not peacefull and that there is a big undercurrent of violence in society both locally (crime and what not) and internationally.

 

[niky]

Well... the human race, I believe, can survive any disaster you throw at it within the next 100 years... be it economical, ecological, biological or war...

What isn't really sustainable is the current rate of development. Basically, we're eating ourselves out of house and home... as jitters over the oil supply spreads, more and more croplands are being turned towards biofuels, leaving less to grow food crops...which means more un-developed land is being cleared for agriculture to grow new crops, which means we've got quite a lot less rainforest than last year. Which, if you believe in global warming, is a bad thing.

And sustainability by crop rotation doesn't quite solve the problem of decreasing topsoil levels... as you till the soil, you're loosening topsoil enough that wind and water can carry the precious loam out to sea. We may never run out of land, but we might have a problem keeping it arable.

And thanks to fossil-fuels... it's very easy to clear forests and till lands with not very many people working in the field... which frees up a large percentage of the population to do nothing but make-work. Such [sarcasm]unnecessary[/sarcasm] things as teaching in schools, running stock markets, doing scientific research or even writing on the internet.

We've never had it better, yes... but it's dependent on fossil fuels and the ability to generate enough food for the population without making a large part of that population do the drudge work of farming. The worst that could happen is we would all have to leave our PCs and go back to the farm.

I'm actually hopeful, though, that advances in waste processing and making biofuels from waste (not crops... that's an energy-losing process at the moment that's not sustainable using current modern farming techniques) may shore up the current civilization as we search for better ways of harnessing solar and hydrothermic energy. Without key advancements in these areas, transitioning to an oil-free civilization will be very difficult.

It's going to suck for a lot of people when the crunch comes, but civilization won't die. We'd be lucky to completely avoid any kind of crunch, but even given the worst-case scenario, human civilization is more flexible than most people give it credit for.

But to call doom-and-gloom self-loathing? i don't think it is. We've had the doom-and-gloom types since the dawn of the written word... and as we learn more and learn more about the tightrope that the economy walks, that doom-and-gloom subtext gets louder... it's not self-loathing... it's just despair and confusion due to information overload.

Me? I've already survived three economical crunches in the past twenty years, locally... things get more difficult, but not impossible.

That's because a lot of what we do, consume and waste is basically superfluous. You don't need to sit in front of a PC or Playstation every day. You don't need to drive to work. You don't actually need electricity 24 hours a day... hell, we've survived on just three hours a day... and some weeks... none. You don't need gas for cooking. You don't need mass-manufactured consumer products from halfway across the world... You don't need the freshest vegetables or the best meats (which, thanks to government regulations, is all you can buy...

With every crisis, people just tighten their belts further... and as technology advances, the belts come loosened, and people get more than they had before... literacy rates aren't perfect, but they're higher than ever. And the availability of medical services and potable water is better than ever before. So the situation isn't dire, not in comparison to many previous eras.

-----

But there is always the danger. And if the constant doom and gloom message of the media forces people to actually think about sustainability... well, that's a good thing. Even if civilization doesn't collapse in the next 20 years due to an oil crunch, making people more conscious of the challenges facing us is a good thing. It spurs technological innovation... It encourages people to invest in bio-fuel or alternative fuel development. It encourages people to conserve. So... how can that be bad?

 

[Sureboss]

Tough Steak and mouldy chips for niky.

 

[niky]

Nah... you haven't had anything till you've eaten fried finch. Yuck. Though I could imagine living off snails for the rest of my life...

 

[FoolKiller]

What happened in the 70s was a shortage, not a complete consumption of.

A shortage caused not by diminished supplies but by political interventionism. And the whole time people were being told it was because we would be out of oil in 5-10 years. Heck, I remember when I was in school that I was told we would run out of oil by 2000. People have been predicting it for over 30 years and keep having to readjust their predictions. If you have to re-predict something multiple times maybe you are wrong.

No, because I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the moment the disruption occurred, which was well before the Europeans took them as slaves. Hell, it might even have saved them from a lonelier harder life.

There is no such thing as a better life as a slave. You think the Europeans may have saved them from themselves by taking away the greatest virtue in life? I would rather die by my own free hand than live at the hands of another.

Just going by what I read. (P.S. It's commonly accepted that we started with the big bang but that, too still "debated" and "uncertain".)

Then read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_collapse

Current theories of the Classic Maya Collapse have been categorized into three models:[7]

1. systemic ecological collapse — the Maya over-exploited the land and caused environmental problems for themselves;
2. political/warfare — a cultural theory holding that the elite fought too much and provided poor leadership; and
3. drought caused by climate change.

That does not read like a commonly accepted theory by the wide scientific community the way the Big Bang is.

You're getting into specifics of old problems. I'm not referring to making the same mistakes with the same things again; I'm talking about making the same mistakes with new things (which is what most of these cultures did). It's not impossible[/QUOTE
No it isn't impossible, but I don't see it happening right now. We recognize that for multiple reasons we need to change our fuel sources and we are working on it. In the past they never tried to change because they didn't have the ability to come up with other options, aside from moving to new lands.

You misunderstood. Typically these cultures accelerated all the way to collapse. There was never a "doomed to begin with" scenario.

I think you misunderstood me. If you think China is expanding to fast and will collapse in on themselves then how did America, which did it much faster, survive?

And sustainability by crop rotation doesn't quite solve the problem of decreasing topsoil levels... as you till the soil, you're loosening topsoil enough that wind and water can carry the precious loam out to sea. We may never run out of land, but we might have a problem keeping it arable.

This sounds like an islander problem to me. And having seen what happens to older islands in the Pacific I doubt much of anything humans can do would stop it. Slow it down maybe, but stopping it completely seems a bit out of our reach right now. Although, we have created man-made islands, so who knows. How feasible is composting for you all?

Trust me though, in the agricultural rich Midwest United States we are not having an issue with top soil blowing away unless there is a drought and then we have river flooding as often as we have droughts, which replenishes top soil.

Heck, you see people with signs in their yards giving away soil for various things. Find a cattle ranch and get all the fresh manure compost you want. At most you will pay $30 a truckload. Our biggest issue is that our soil is rich in clay so you have to find ways to aerate it so it can drain properly.

We've never had it better, yes... but it's dependent on fossil fuels and the ability to generate enough food for the population without making a large part of that population do the drudge work of farming. The worst that could happen is we would all have to leave our PCs and go back to the farm.

This is why I grow my own vegetable garden. Well that and $50 in April and May feeds me fresh fruits and veggies for the whole summer. It is very economical. And I figure that if I can provide for myself everyone benefits.

You don't need to sit in front of a PC or Playstation every day.

Who has the torches?

 

[Pupik]

America? Expand faster than China? Uh...

snip graph 1 and snip graph 2

Human population total is not the only method of describing "expansion". It would probably better describe how well people feel about how they project the future. Otherwise, that's like saying one city is better than another because there's more people in it: "Yay! We're denser than you!"

 

[niky]

This sounds like an islander problem to me. And having seen what happens to older islands in the Pacific I doubt much of anything humans can do would stop it. Slow it down maybe, but stopping it completely seems a bit out of our reach right now. Although, we have created man-made islands, so who knows. How feasible is composting for you all?

Well, when you expand it and consider that the entire planet is an island. It's an issue of where populations are, also. The entire planet is not as fertile as the temperate climate belt that North America sits in... and you guys have had your big dust bowl in the past. The one worry now is that impending climate change, if it reaches a certain degree, may move the temperate band further north... subjecting larger areas of land to the problems of tropical farming. The extremes that tropical farms are subjected to lowers productivity and causes the occasional disaster induced shortage.

Composting is slowly catching on... and it'll help, yeah... but I don't know how much so. And North America does have the advantage of having large amounts of untapped and under-utilized farmlands... a luxury not very many other countries have.

Still, like I've said... there is some silly hysteria in the idea that civilization will collapse... it's just the current rate of growth, the trend of converting fertile farmland into city and tearing down virgin wilderness to create new farms, and the state of civilization... with a small percentage of the population dedicated to growing food for the rest... who use up energy and resources at a profligrate rate... that's non-sustainable.

But possibly, the end of the cheap oil age will solve that problem for us. A shift to less cost-effective fuels will probably change the way we do business, the way we live and the amounts we consume. There are a million things we can do to stave off oil extinction even before we start changing our basic way of life. So many tiny things upon which millions of gallons of oil are used to save industries a few cents.

Do we all need zippers made in China? No. Does your common car need to be made out of parts sourced from the four corners of the Earth? Of course not. Once it costs companies dollars in transport costs to save pennies in production costs, they'll start to localize production again... when fuel prices get to the point at which people cannot afford their commutes, they will start to work closer to home, or live closer to work, or even just work at home...

But that's not happening yet. Oil is still way too cheap to affect the way we live. As it gets more expensive, human civilization, industry and technology will get more fuel efficient. What I can't tell as of yet is whether we will be able to sustain cheap agriculture in the absence of cheap oil.

Who has the torches?

Aww... come on... you can always grow alcohol to power the electric generators... 💡

 

[FoolKiller]

On the contrary—each prediction thereafter is more accurate.

How do we know? From everything I have seen they are using the same concepts and data as before. They have to revise every five years because reality isn't fitting their models. Sure, eventually they will be right, but you can only cry wolf so many times before people ignore you. Perhaps they need to find a new prediction model that is actually accurate?

America? Expand faster than China? Uh...

Almost all the aforementioned examples were due to population strain on the environment or available resources.

I wasn't referring to population, but rather resource usage. Based on population strain China should have collapsed by now and based on resource usage (and its increase) America should have collapsed by now. The thing is we have found ways to produce more resources and met our demands. The free market is also having an effect as prices of things will increase and we will have to adjust by necessity.

I wonder, out of the failed civilizations mentioned, how many had government intervention? I know the Soviet Union did.

Aww... come on... you can always grow alcohol to power the electric generators... 💡

Trust me, if I can grow alcohol I may lose the hand-eye coordination necessary to use my PS3.

 

[V1P3R]

Hmm... Live longer, more people, and I should be happy about this?! Uhh... no.

Smarter now? uh... that's debatable.

 

[Danoff]

Hmm... Live longer, more people, and I should be happy about this?! Uhh... no.

Smarter now? uh... that's debatable.

How is better health a bad thing again?

 

[nk4e]

But to call doom-and-gloom self-loathing? i don't think it is. We've had the doom-and-gloom types since the dawn of the written word... and as we learn more and learn more about the tightrope that the economy walks, that doom-and-gloom subtext gets louder... it's not self-loathing... it's just despair and confusion due to information overload.

I always wondered why do authors make books on have to survive a certain date but that is another topic for a different matter.

 

[niky]

Because it sells books. Write a book about surviving the year 2000 in 1999, and it'll sell boatloads... until we hit 2000... nothing happens, and you have to write another doomsday book about 2010... etcetera...