On January 25 2013 13:21 Powerpill wrote: It is scary how much the population has jumped in numbers over the last century, and where it will be in the near future (nothing doomsdayish, but still quite a lot). I was actually talking with an old female friend of mine who now has two kids, and she asked why I do not yet have any (I am 30 btw). I answered that I was not sure if I wanted kids, and if so, I would probably only want one. Her response was that I had a "selfish" attitude (she plans to have two more by the way). That comment still boggles my mind.
Many western countries have currently an expected population growth that will stop around 2020-2030 and will start to diminish from there (unless women have more kids or immigration goes up).
Many "rich" countries have a fertility rate below 2.1 which is the minimum to not have your population having a negative growth (without immigration). The problem of overpopulation is for poor countries where having many children is still a sign of wealth or don't have birth control or other reasons. Sadly they are probably the countries that suffer the most from it. But its pretty clear that more developed countries, better health and stuff will probably make a lower fertility rate.
Hell, the world average fertility rate has been declining steadily since the 50ies going from 5 to 2.5 and is expected to slowly continue to decline.
i think overconsumption is due to the fact that humans still have biological instincts. perhaps one could make an argument that we consume and stockpile excessive resources due to our natural want to survive and to protect the future of our offspring.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, which is what a school boy might say to his friend after being asked what country is the best, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
On January 25 2013 09:49 hasuprotoss wrote: Considering people have been saying this since around the turn of the 19th century, I'm not sure how much weight I should put into one man's statement.
I kind of agree with this, why is his particular statement so special? Hating humans isn't exactly a new concept.
I honestly think he is just pissed he has to deal with so many pesky natives interfering with his heroic attempts at making the next great honey badger documentary. What with their deforestation of jungles to build up industry, hunting endangered species to provide better lives for their families, etc. I mean really, the nerve. Clearly the world would be a better place without so many people in it, better for Sir David Attenborough at least. We should implement population controls in Ethiopia and similar nations straightaway, so that wondrous continent Africa won't be bespoiled by the plague of humanity which presently threatens it. For that is what they are, you know - a plague.
Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
Sometimes I really despise terms like "edgy" and "emo". Just because views are intensely negative, does not mean they are irrational. Instead of going for low blows and comparing people to angsty kids, please try to disprove them through logic and reason.
I apologize. I wasn't responding to any specific post, but in the future I will single a few out.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
It's the people in this thread agreeing with the view that humanity is a plague that I was referring to. I don't see my own comments as going against the grain in the slightest, because even on tl I doubt the majority would agree with the sentiment that humanity is a disease that must be cured by forcible population control.
As for the man whose comments provoked this discussion, it's harder to read into his motivations, particularly since we don't have access to the full article. He's a European elite who thinks we should come together as one to force Ethiopians to have less children, and refers to humanity as a plague. To me, that strikes a very familiar chord. Western elites have a very long tradition of attempting to force their "ideals" on other peoples in a way that's beneficial to themselves, without really taking the wishes of those peoples into account.
On January 25 2013 13:36 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not.
Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though.
Is it better for millions (or billions) to die of starvation and hunger, or the ensuing violence over resources, or to put limitations on how many children people can have?
One of those two things has far less suffering attached than the other.
Ok first of all, millions/billions of people have been dying of starvation or hunger for a long time and it is tragic, but that is natural selection taking its course, why do WE have a responsibility to change that by choosing who we think should suffer more? What is your suggestion? Forced abortions?
On January 25 2013 13:16 Slaughter wrote:
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
I wouldn't label him being in favor of eugenics. Eugenics wants to "improve" the species by controlling who can and cannot reproduce and the "less desirable" people would be sterilized. It seems he wants to curb population growth overall rather then judging who can and cannot reproduce to improve the species.
How would you implement a sweeping population curb fairly across the board? You can't. It's the same thing.
Have you not heard of the one child law? We don't need to kill or even abort fetuses. We only need to pass laws limiting births. Also, we won't be choosing who suffers more. We would be passing simple laws that really don't do that much harm and would prevent millions of painful deaths.
One child law is hardly a shining example. Its consequences include a significant increase in forced abortions and infanticide, and that's not even touching the kind of societal and cultural controls you need in place to make implementing such a policy even feasible.
Even Attenborough himself has had two kids, so it's not like you'd find him advocating this.
At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
To become famous once again late in life. To give interviews, to be written about. To get favorable coverage by a media very attuned to global warming and the energy crisis.
I don't think you understand who you're talking about. He is one of the most recognisable figures in Britain, if not the world. He is an iconic symbol. He will be written about for years after his death and he is still producing documentaries that are shown all over the world. I disagree with his point but Sir David does not need to pull any kind of stunt to get heard about or be remembered for his conservationism. He's pretty much the founder of modern popular conservationism and all the environmental awareness that goes with it.
So he took up a new cause related to what he already believes in. I'll agree that he may be very recognizable in Britain, and perhaps many parts of the world. I'll confess, this is my first hearing of his name and achievements.
He may actually be quite right. At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
Did you read this and think the writer went a bit overboard? Of COURSE, this man is a saint and cannot be suspected of any other motives! The author laid it on a bit thick, as if this is the first guy supporting the over-population agenda and over-consumption ideology that is an honest man to boot. I take it that the first reason I listed is untrue, as he need no more fame or interviews. A naturalist is late in life persuaded that both population growth and consumption will lead to a litany of ill effects, not only that, but that "Humans are a plague on Earth" (Did he always have this spark for hyperbole?). Maybe he's the best thing to come to the cause he now champions. One honorable man has made a mistake in going so overboard for this issue. I'd have to know more about population control advocacy in Britain to fully know if he's further in the fold with popular causes for the naturalists. I came out reading that he has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda that this was the endorsement of the Pope and discovered writings from both Gandhi and Mother Theresa.
Not really, that kind of rhetoric is needed for people such as yourself who probably only experienced his work with an American voiceover or something to understand what a big deal he is. You know every single animal documentary/programme ever? They trace back to Zoo Quest which is him 60 years ago filming himself and a team of professionals from London Zoo tracking down animals to capture and bring back to London zoo. He's had a conservationist streak for a long time, he has no need to establish credentials in that regard. He's been outspoken on climate change, endangered species, deforestation and so forth. On the other hand, he spends a lot of time in these places, despite his old age, he's someone who walked in the rainforests that have since been burned for plantations.
So he's famous for his documentaries and has a history of advocating green causes, this being just the edgiest one yet. I'm beginning to think I'm alone on this one, but how much weight of unbiased motivation and altruistic devotion can he really bring to the table. Albert Gore, Jr., can come out tomorrow on this and I won't bat an eye, though he isn't well beloved and hasn't been in the media's eye for a great length of time. But he also has long been in environmentalist advocacy and is not presumed to have lived in industry and explored this issue from both sides with a balanced eye. I'm coming to understand all he's done that's endeared him in the public's hearts, and those of the academic community. Yet, I would not for an instant elevate this man's agenda as being on the side of the angels. I'll take the word of a major farming conglomerate's head, providing jobs for many thousands, and the food side that keeps a large population fed, with comparative length of standing with the same value as Sir David. Some fertilizer guy as well, who can nobly go about providing that which assists in food production. The naturalists, scientists, and environmentalists hold no monopoly on altruism. It's just the other side rarely rises to such fame and warmth of regard in wide media circles.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
We are completely immune to natural predators? Okay... but the cost was to make ourselves completely vulnerable to ourselves. A select few humans could annihilate humanity with the weapons we possess, which endangers humanity far more than humans being hunted by any predator, at any point in history. Lions might have killed a few humans, but we never risked annihilation at the paws of Lions...
And the point is to extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil?
No, the point is for the species to develop an equilibrium with its environment, ensuring its survival for generations to come, not to allow each member of the species in a select few generations to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil." Species that develop an equilibrium with the environment will increasingly live a life of leisure as opposed to a life of toil due to natural selection.
And if what you said was true, then domesticated dogs are doing better than humans. They have very little toil and live a life of relative leisure, do they not? My dogs sure live a nice leisurely life, and they don't do any work. Even herding and sled dogs thoroughly enjoy their work and live leisurely generally. Sure, some dogs aren't taken care of, but a lot of humans aren't either...
Now Dolphins are doing a great job, they have developed an equilibrium with their environment, ensuring their survival, and they have plenty of time for leisure, and do not toil much.
Again, did you watch the video? Dolphins muck around and have fun all day, and I am going to work 8 hours tomorrow...
Sorry to derail slightly but I have to express my views on China's one child policy because many of you guys are talking about it.
You can easily limit births using deterrence without having to resort to direct forced abortions. In China's case, you can still give birth to your second child, and it is considered illegal for anyone to force you to abort, but say byebye to your job.
It sucks for people who want lots of children and keep their stable jobs at the same time, but you have to consider when the policy was implemented, China was in dire poverty. There was a lack of essential public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals and not enough money to build them. So basically the government had 2 options:
1. Don't intervene, and eventually after god knows how many decades, the public will hopefully wake up and realize that it would be a pretty good idea to have less children. In the meantime, China remains impoverished, schools and hospitals remain overcrowded, infant mortality, youth unemployment and crime rate increases, and you can insert basically everything tragic that happened in Romania under Ceausescu due to overpopulation.
2. Intervene. Parents lose their freedom and a host of other problems arises such as gender imbalance, and the occasional local official who gets way over his head and forces abortion (which I think is more of a corruption issue). BUT the strain on public infrastructure is lifted. Children now have a chance at better education and receive better individual healthcare.
I would choose the latter option because imo it is obviously the lesser evil. I think its worth sacrificing a bit of freedom and justice in favor of avoiding the unnecessary suffering of hundreds of millions of children (who will undoubtedly continue to suffer into their adult lives) and to allow society to break out of the vicious cycle that overpopulation has created. When you look at individual cases of officials forcing locals to abort or parents crying because their only child perished in an accident or something you'll probably think, "welp this policy is ass". But if you look at the big picture, it is a harsh but effective policy that has improved lives and helped prevent something even more tragic. Another way to look at it is Quantity vs Quality of life, if you wish.
Edit: I'm not saying that population control is always good, or even always necessary. Nature and society will always strive towards equilibrium slowly and arduously, but if humans give it a push in the right direction, much of the pain and suffering in between can be removed. The trouble of course is determining how strong should we push, and in what direction, which we're obviously not very good at doing.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
We are completely immune to natural predators? Okay... but the cost was to make ourselves completely vulnerable to ourselves. A select few humans could annihilate humanity with the weapons we possess, which endangers humanity far more than humans being hunted by any predator, at any point in history. Lions might have killed a few humans, but we never risked annihilation at the paws of Lions...
And the point is to extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil?
No, the point is for the species to develop a equilibrium with its environment, ensuring its survival for generations to come, not to allow each member of the species in a select few generations to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil."
If what you said was true, then domesticated dogs are doing better than humans. They have very little toil and live a life of relative leisure, do they not? My dogs sure live a nice leisurely life, and they don't do any work. Even herding and sled dogs thoroughly enjoy their work and live leisurely generally. Sure, some dogs aren't taken care of, but a lot of humans aren't either...
Again, did you watch the video? Dolphins muck around and have fun all day, and I am going to work 8 hours tomorrow...
loool. You don't get it do you? Dolphins don't muck around; they have to swim quite far to find food, and when food runs out, they die en masse. They have no ability to farm the fish they eat, they have no ability to increase their numbers past what nature lets them.
By contrast, if a human society hits a resource limit, it can just figure a way around it, much as Britain chopped down all her forests (and those of Ireland too) and then switched to coal, and then switched to oil from the North Sea. Now, people are figuring out energy sources like fusion, and designing rockets and colonization plans for other planets--permanently divorcing humans from the whims and caprice of a natural environment. That's progress. Eco-luddism is not.
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
Ah, that post is hilarious. Starts off with a false grasp of what eugenics is, then segues into judeo-christian bullshit, and then points out that more consumption only means more wealth for everyone. Not even gonna mention the rest.
On January 25 2013 16:15 Arcadia92 wrote: Sorry to derail slightly but I have to express my views on China's one child policy because many of you guys are talking about it.
You can easily limit births using deterrence without having to resort to direct forced abortions. In China's case, you can still give birth to your second child, and it is considered illegal for anyone to force you to abort, but say byebye to your job.
It sucks for people who want lots of children and keep their stable jobs at the same time, but you have to consider when the policy was implemented, China was in dire poverty. There was a lack of essential public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals and not enough money to build them. So basically the government had 2 options:
1. Don't intervene, and eventually after god knows how many decades, the public will hopefully wake up and realize that it would be a pretty good idea to have less children. In the meantime, China remains impoverished, schools and hospitals remain overcrowded, infant mortality, youth unemployment and crime rate increases, and you can insert basically everything tragic that happened in Romania under Ceausescu due to overpopulation.
2. Intervene. Parents lose their freedom and a host of other problems arises such as gender imbalance, and the occasional local official who gets way over his head and forces abortion (which I think is more of a corruption issue). BUT the strain on public infrastructure is lifted. Children now have a chance at better education and receive better individual healthcare.
I would choose the latter option because imo it is obviously the lesser evil. I think its worth sacrificing a bit of freedom and justice in favor of avoiding the unnecessary suffering of hundreds of millions of children (who will undoubtedly continue to suffer into their adult lives) and to allow society to break out of the vicious cycle that overpopulation has created. When you look at individual cases of officials forcing locals to abort or parents crying because their only child perished in an accident or something you'll probably think, "welp this policy is ass". But if you look at the big picture, it is a harsh but effective policy that has improved lives and helped prevent something even more tragic. Another way to look at it is Quantity vs Quality of life, if you wish.
While what you wrote is true, China was/is in the unenviable position of having a state that is in many ways totalitarian, certainly not one with a great deal of respect for free speech or individual rights. For a policy like one child to work, you need a heavily controlled media and brutally repressive state apparatus capable of largely silencing dissent. A look at the whole picture is necessary here, and the fact is, to implement rigorous population control on the basis of force, or even threat of stripping an offender's job, would require a fundamental reworking of many existing governments/societies, probably not for the better.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
We are completely immune to natural predators? Okay... but the cost was to make ourselves completely vulnerable to ourselves. A select few humans could annihilate humanity with the weapons we possess, which endangers humanity far more than humans being hunted by any predator, at any point in history. Lions might have killed a few humans, but we never risked annihilation at the paws of Lions...
And the point is to extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil?
No, the point is for the species to develop a equilibrium with its environment, ensuring its survival for generations to come, not to allow each member of the species in a select few generations to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil."
If what you said was true, then domesticated dogs are doing better than humans. They have very little toil and live a life of relative leisure, do they not? My dogs sure live a nice leisurely life, and they don't do any work. Even herding and sled dogs thoroughly enjoy their work and live leisurely generally. Sure, some dogs aren't taken care of, but a lot of humans aren't either...
Again, did you watch the video? Dolphins muck around and have fun all day, and I am going to work 8 hours tomorrow...
loool. You don't get it do you? Dolphins don't muck around; they have to swim quite far to find food, and when food runs out, they die en masse. They have no ability to farm the fish they eat, they have no ability to increase their numbers past what nature lets them.
By contrast, if a human society hits a resource limit, it can just figure a way around it, much as Britain chopped down all her forests (and those of Ireland too) and then switched to coal, and then switched to oil from the North Sea. Now, people are figuring out energy sources like fusion, and designing rockets and colonization plans for other planets--permanently divorcing humans from the whims and caprice of a natural environment. That's progress. Eco-luddism is not.
Dolphins don't need to farm to survive, they don't need to have any ability to increase their numbers past what nature allows, that is the entire point!
What are we progressing toward? Where are we going? Progress toward what? Survival? We have only endangered our own survival more than anything with our technology. Our weaponry obviously endangers our survival. Medicine allows people who would die from certain things to survive and pass on their genes, removing us from the effects of natural selection (literally we are de-evolving), which means we'll need even more medicine to fix the problems that result from saving people with medicine in the first place! I also want to add that I imagine that a larger percentage of humans die from starvation than dolphins. 33% of the world's human population is considered to be starving, if you didn't know.
And, there is end game here that means that progress to ensure survival alone is a fruitless goal. Entropy in thermodynamics says that:
"Following the second law of thermodynamics, entropy of a closed system always increases and in heat transfer situations, heat energy is transferred from higher temperature components to lower temperature components. In thermally isolated systems, entropy runs in one direction only (it is not a reversible process). One can measure the entropy of a system to determine the energy not available for work in a thermodynamic process, such as energy conversion, engines, or machines. Such processes and devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when converting energy to work. During this work, entropy accumulates in the system, which then dissipates in the form of waste heat."
Now, the first law states that all the energy in the universe has to add up to the energy that existed at the universe’s start.
The second law state that: The energy of the universe is constant. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum
So we can colonize, expand, and whatever, but in the end, all species, even the universe as we know it, will cease to exist. Entorpy always flows one way, and heat is waste. Thus if you make a car, then melt it down, you won't have the resources to remake said car with what you melted down, because some of the energy escaped in the form of heat, and cannot be recovered. Another way to explain the process is that no engine is 100% efficient (or will ever be), and thus when an engine converts energy into work, the heat that results dissipates and cannot be recovered. Thus the universe is trending toward a giant ball of nothing, because heat is converting energy into a form we cannot use, and the only result of it is that is slightly warms the universe.
So eventually we'll reach maximal entropy, and in such a universe there would be no stars, planets, or people (Hawkings predicts that the universe has 10 to the 100th power years left, that is the number 10, followed by 100 zeros, before it enters a dark age). And then perhaps the only score that will matter is how much fun we had, and that is measured not by how much progress we had or how big our population was, but how easy it was for us to survive. There is nothing else. And I think we're going the wrong direction.
Now perhaps you think the score shouldn't be how much fun we had, but that is what you suggested when you said we should strive to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil." Sounds like having fun is how you'd score it too to me.
So now that we know that regardless of our technology we'll cease to exist, we know it is pointless to try and simply survive. And thus progress in overcoming resource restrictions is relatively meaningless in comparison to "living a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil."
We should be attempting to ensure that we don't annihilate ourselves (because that isn't fun), and instead attempt to survive easily while having fun. Douglas Adams argues that dolphins do a much better job of that than we do, and I am inclined to agree.
I dislike this misantropist attitude, theres as much potential for as for bad in humans, its just that those who strive for power more often than not carry the bad traits of mankind than the humble grinders that fill society.
Sure it doesnt help that we are generating a culture that is very decadent, and basically is a self idolatration and self agrandizement culture that values nothing other than the self, but just because its being pushed hard in the mainstream, doesnt mean its all there is to us.
The world is a big place, most of the 7 billions of us live in ways where they are just too busy to express themselves, so we have this sweked perception of where things are going, because we are only listening to bums who have nothing better to do than talk crap and think crap.
What does entropy and the heat death of the universe have to do with anything in this thread? Also just because humanity will at some point in the future cease to exist doesn't mean you get to claim that having fun becomes more important than progress.
On January 25 2013 16:15 Arcadia92 wrote: Sorry to derail slightly but I have to express my views on China's one child policy because many of you guys are talking about it.
You can easily limit births using deterrence without having to resort to direct forced abortions. In China's case, you can still give birth to your second child, and it is considered illegal for anyone to force you to abort, but say byebye to your job.
It sucks for people who want lots of children and keep their stable jobs at the same time, but you have to consider when the policy was implemented, China was in dire poverty. There was a lack of essential public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals and not enough money to build them. So basically the government had 2 options:
1. Don't intervene, and eventually after god knows how many decades, the public will hopefully wake up and realize that it would be a pretty good idea to have less children. In the meantime, China remains impoverished, schools and hospitals remain overcrowded, infant mortality, youth unemployment and crime rate increases, and you can insert basically everything tragic that happened in Romania under Ceausescu due to overpopulation.
2. Intervene. Parents lose their freedom and a host of other problems arises such as gender imbalance, and the occasional local official who gets way over his head and forces abortion (which I think is more of a corruption issue). BUT the strain on public infrastructure is lifted. Children now have a chance at better education and receive better individual healthcare.
I would choose the latter option because imo it is obviously the lesser evil. I think its worth sacrificing a bit of freedom and justice in favor of avoiding the unnecessary suffering of hundreds of millions of children (who will undoubtedly continue to suffer into their adult lives) and to allow society to break out of the vicious cycle that overpopulation has created. When you look at individual cases of officials forcing locals to abort or parents crying because their only child perished in an accident or something you'll probably think, "welp this policy is ass". But if you look at the big picture, it is a harsh but effective policy that has improved lives and helped prevent something even more tragic. Another way to look at it is Quantity vs Quality of life, if you wish.
While what you wrote is true, China was/is in the unenviable position of having a state that is in many ways totalitarian, certainly not one with a great deal of respect for free speech or individual rights. For a policy like one child to work, you need a heavily controlled media and brutally repressive state apparatus capable of largely silencing dissent. A look at the whole picture is necessary here, and the fact is, to implement rigorous population control on the basis of force, or even threat of stripping an offender's job, would require a fundamental reworking of many existing governments/societies, probably not for the better.
Yeah I wasn't looking at it in that perspective. But then again nations with stable democratic governments are unlikely to have massive overpopulation problems . Oh dear now I have a casuality loop stuck in my brain. One child is definitely one of the the most drastic and draconian population control ever.
Edit: half my post got cut off..? I was going to say that we don't have to implement anything as serious as One Child Policy in our society. Countries with very high SOL such as Singapore have semi-effective incentive-based policies I believe. I have to read more on the subject though...
EPT
. Oh dear now I have a casuality loop stuck in my brain. One child is definitely one of the the most drastic and draconian population control ever. 
