I am a 40 year old male. My wife and I are expecting baby #4. We have been married 6 years, and gotten pregnant with minimal effort (haha). We could probably have 4 more kids, over the next 6 years, unless one of us has a surgical procedure. My wife is willing to have the procedure. In fact, she is insisting on the procedure for herself. Having children is like rolling the dice of life. You hope for a good result. In our case, it has served as a magnifying glass. Whatever positive or negative attributes we have, are magnified. Also, it is becoming more and more difficult to adapt to change. I am experiencing this on a personal level, but I feel that it applies globally as well. Our human population is reproducing very successfully. As a species, we are rolling the dice, and hoping for a good result.
But what ever bad habits we have, like polluting the environment, and using up scarce resources, will tend towards our eventual extinction. Whatever good habits we have, like intuitive inventiveness, good communication/cooperation, will tend towards our eventual successful evolution.
The question I would like to pose is this:
Is our competitive nature leading us to extinction or successful evolution?
For my family, I am hoping for the latter, for my species, I fear the former. Posterity will have to be the judge, but for now, let me know your thoughts.
Originally posted by jkentttWe're on our way to extinction if we keep up what we're doing.
I am a 40 year old male. My wife and I are expecting baby #4. We have been married 6 years, and gotten pregnant with minimal effort (haha). We could probably have 4 more kids, over the next 6 years, unless one of us has a surgical procedure. My wife is willing to have the procedure. In fact, she is insisting on the procedure for herself. Having children is l ...[text shortened]... I fear the former. Posterity will have to be the judge, but for now, let me know your thoughts.
If these type of thoughts are running through your head, may I recommend Ishmael by Daniel Quinn? You've timed it well as we are due to start a discussion on this book within the next couple of weeks.
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Originally posted by jkentttWe are not going to go extinct. There will be enough people left after any disaster to keep on breeding.
I am a 40 year old male. My wife and I are expecting baby #4. We have been married 6 years, and gotten pregnant with minimal effort (haha). We could probably have 4 more kids, over the next 6 years, unless one of us has a surgical procedure. My wife is willing to have the procedure. In fact, she is insisting on the procedure for herself. Having children is l ...[text shortened]... I fear the former. Posterity will have to be the judge, but for now, let me know your thoughts.
As far as I know, the Nuclear option is not off the table. But I agree, that it is unlikely for the species. Interesting how growth is equated with success, like a reward. But too much growth is usually punished. So, are we punishing ourselves by our own success? And, if we are punishing ourselves, then we obviously deserve it. I guess the question is, do my kids deserve the same or better than I had, or are they doomed to get less, since it will be spread thinner?
Originally posted by jkentttExtinction... hmmm, don't know. Depends (especially) on the use of nukes. We have enough, you know, to remove the entire planet's crust. Impressive huh. Still, the cockroaches would be fine....
I am a 40 year old male. My wife and I are expecting baby #4. We have been married 6 years, and gotten pregnant with minimal effort (haha). We could probably have 4 more kids, over the next 6 years, unless one of us has a surgical procedure. My wife is willing to have the procedure. In fact, she is insisting on the procedure for herself. Having children is l ...[text shortened]... I fear the former. Posterity will have to be the judge, but for now, let me know your thoughts.
Anyhoo, we ARE utilising too many resources, and we're growing too fast. The planet cannot keep this up. Population decline, probably with extreme rapidity, is quite possibly inevitable within the next 100 years. Provided we don't destroy ourselves using nukes, I'd say that catastrophic events, such as disease (bird flu, anyone?), poverty, drought, climate change, etc are going to be the biggest influences on future human development.
We cannot seriously evolve within this time frame, in the same way that human influenced climate change destroys species, because they cannot migrate either a) quickly enough, or b) over natural obsticles, such as mountains, to remain in temperature conditions which allow continued survival. i.e. natural climate change (of this magnitude) takes centuries, not decades.
I am hopeful, but things are going to change as our population climbs towards, reaches and breaches 10 billion.
Why are you hopeful? What is your hope based on? World hunger is not the crisis people make it out to be. Tragic, YES. Crisis, NO. It is nature fighting back. I believe that human nature is OK, but it must be allowed to take its course, as it usually has in our history. Either than or we need to open up new environments, and spreac to unpolluted untapped area, like the oceans, or inner earth, or outer space.
Originally posted by jkentttI'm hopeful about many things. Science has managed to do some great stuff over especially the last 50 years. You are right, world food shortages aren't as bad as people make out. There currently IS enough food. Every person requires about 1kg of food per day. Current worldwide production is about 1.14kg / day. However, the problem is more that the food is not uniformly distributed, but some countries monopolise more than others. You talk about "opening up new environments", such as? Would you like to produce some viable options. The open ocean is out. There just isn't enough iron in the surface waters to provide phytoplankton with the iron they need to produce chlorophyll. Some experiments such as the Southern Ocean Iron Enrichment Experiement (SOIREE) have been conducted to show that if we fertilise the oceans we can improve productivity - for a couple of weeks. The oceans are the biggest desert of biological life on the planet. Where else? The Sahara? Not enough rainfall. And with climate change it's going to get bigger, of course. Inner earth? Outer space? I think you need to lay off the mind altering drugs, my friend. There is some hope for water use efficient plants, especially the cereals (rice is horribly inefficient), since the 21st century is predicted to be a 'dry century' with drought the single largest problem that we face. Coupled with drought, of course, is salinity. Again a huge problem, and not one easily alterred. Not much you can do about it. You can try and leach the salt out of the soil, but your water has to be hellishly pure, otherwise you just end up with more salt.
Why are you hopeful? What is your hope based on? World hunger is not the crisis people make it out to be. Tragic, YES. Crisis, NO. It is nature fighting back. I believe that human nature is OK, but it must be allowed to take its course, as it usually has in our history. Either than or we need to open up new environments, and spreac to unpolluted untapped area, like the oceans, or inner earth, or outer space.
Humans are only doing what every other organism does. Culture microbes in a chemostat and they'll grow' slowly at first, then more rapidly, then very rapidly, until all the resources are gone. We are in that rapid growth phase, as a species, right now. It will not destroy our species, but it's really gonna start changing things around. Pretty soon the US (especially, but also other western regimes) are gonna start feeling the heat when China and India start to enforce their authority. You might have all the nukes, but between them they represent over a quarter of the world population.
All these problems are real, but they're not unsurmountable. We're gonna have to start acting a bit more grown up as a species though.
So we need to modify human nature; in order to have a conitued hope for a better and better life for future generation? We need to look inward, not outward for the solution to our natural inclination to reproduce? In a chess forum, which is full of thoughtful introspecive philosophers, this is a plausible solution. I am with you in spirit, but my actions speak for themselves. I am about to have a 4th child, and on a personal level, it seems rational, even logical that I should do this.
PS, I liked your analysis for alternative food production. One thing you left out better recycling of waste products, and meathods to reduce spoilage.
Originally posted by scottishinnzThat is hugely incorrect.
Humans are only doing what every other organism does.
Please tell me what other species do all of the following: hoard up more food than we need, wipe out competitors to our food, wipe out competitors to food for our food, wipe out any species which denies our continuing expansion.
A hungry lion is going to go out hunting for food, ie: its favourite (?) food, the wildebeest. He's not going to specifically go out to hunt a leopard because the leopard is a competitor for the same food.
A lion isn't going to try to wipe out every other grazer so that the wildebeest can have more food, and so the lion can have more food. If a lion kills a grazer, ie: an antelope, its because he wants to eat it.
A lion isn't going to undertake deforestation, cos the trees are competitors for the space which the grass needs to grow to feed the wildebeest, so the lion can have more prey.
No other species carries out such acts of species genocide as humans so as to continue the huge population explosion brought about by over production of food; basic ecology.
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Originally posted by RagnorakI see your point, but I don't believe my analogy to be that hugely flawed.
That is hugely incorrect.
Please tell me what other species do all of the following: hoard up more food than we need, wipe out competitors to our food, wipe out competitors to food for our food, wipe out any species which denies our continuing expansion.
A hungry lion is going to go out hunting for food, ie: its favourite (?) food, the wildebeest. He ...[text shortened]... e the huge population explosion brought about by over production of food; basic ecology.
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Many species hoard more food than they need - look up 'adipose tissue' for example. Plants, likewise, also take up more nutrients than they need for growth, when they are in excess. Lions (or more correctly normally lionesses) will kill more than they strictly need to survive if fod is plentiful.
Both animals and plants (esp. plants, oh, and microbes) will happily go out and remove competitors. That's how territories work. Also look up allelopathy in plants. Penecillin is an exudate from the Penicillium fungi likewise, which serves (naturally) to kill competitors.
No, we're not unusual, and certainly nothing special.
Originally posted by jkentttHey man,
So we need to modify human nature; in order to have a conitued hope for a better and better life for future generation? We need to look inward, not outward for the solution to our natural inclination to reproduce? In a chess forum, which is full of thoughtful introspecive philosophers, this is a plausible solution. I am with you in spirit, but my actions spe ...[text shortened]... ion. One thing you left out better recycling of waste products, and meathods to reduce spoilage.
Congratulations on the kid! Yes, there are many problems in the world presently. Overpopulation in itself is a simplistic term. Population is rarely spread evenly. For example, I currently live in NZ, which has a rounghly equal land area to the UK, germany and Japan. NZ has a popn. of 4 million, the UK 60 million, germany 80 million, and Japan is about 125 million. Some areas are more populous than others; some places need a population increase, whilst others have too many. The major hurdle to evening out some of these differences is politics. What people are starting to realise is thatpolitics is a man-made concept, and if it ain't working, perhaps it's time to change it. That's probably Bob Geldoff's biggest message to be honest!
We do need some changes, and they ARE happening. But we're just at the beginning, not the end!
Originally posted by scottishinnzI'm aware that some species hoard food, like the squirrel, that's why I asked you to list a species that "do all the following".
I see your point, but I don't believe my analogy to be that hugely flawed.
Many species hoard more food than they need - look up 'adipose tissue' for example. Plants, likewise, also take up more nutrients than they need for growth, when they are in excess. Lions (or more correctly normally lionesses) will kill more than they strictly need t s (naturally) to kill competitors.
No, we're not unusual, and certainly nothing special.
I disagree about the lionesses. But that one instance isn't key to the debate.
Territorial conflicts are different. If a competitor encroaches anothers territory then its going to kick off. Normally non-fatally, if they are evenly matched. However, most species don't go out hunting specifically for their competitors, so as to wipe them out from the area.
Surely, you'll have to accept that the Penicillium case is an entirely different case. The fungi doesn't go out looking for competitors to kill off. Surely (and I haven't looked up the exact usage), the exudate is either a defense (admittedly pretty deadly) mechanism against predators, or an offensive weapon against its prey. Either way, every species on the planet has a defense mechanism against predators and an offense mechanism against prey. That's nature.
No other species on the planet undertakes the systematic destruction of competitors, competitors to the prey of humans food source, competitors to the space of the humans food source other than humans.
That is why I say your statement is hugely wrong that "Humans are only doing what every other organism does." Apologies if my reply seemed a bit curt.
And I would most definitely argue that we are unusual and certainly a special case.
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Some areas are more populous than others; some places need a population increase, whilst others have too many.
Again, I disagree. Ireland would probably be classified as underpopulated. And yet we feel the strain of the population explosion experienced elsewhere due to the overfishing of our waters, as one specific case.
Why would New Zealand be classed as underpopulated? Because of the masses of open space available? And why are those empty spaces there? Because man has cut down a huge percentage of the trees there to make space for grazing and growing crops, which contributes to the population explosion elsewhere. (I've been to NZ and I wouldn't classify it as underpopulated. I would say it is just right, and I have decided that I want to retire there.😉 )
Brazil couldn't be said to be overpopulated (Of course some of the cities are hugely overpopulated, but the country as a whole would be classified as under-populated), and yet they are cutting down huge tracts of the Amazon rain forest in order to clear space for crops (which is stupidity of the highest order due to a multitude of reasons, which I can go into if you're interested) and for grazing. Same with the Pantanal on the Brazil-Bolivian border, which is one of nature's most spectacular areas for spotting wildlife. These crimes are being committed due to overpopulation, not in Brazil but in other parts of our now small global community.
Would you agree that if we keep over-producing food, that our population will keep exploding? Basic ecology.
What people are starting to realise is thatpolitics is a man-made concept, and if it ain't working, perhaps it's time to change it.
Finally, I agree with you. 🙂
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Originally posted by jkentttTube tying is a lot more invasive than a vasectomy. It carries a greater risk of complications and if they do develop they tend to be lot more serious. Infections are many times more common with tube tying than with a vasectomy. Recovery times are longer and I've yet to hear of a successful reversal (vasectomy reversals aren't common and are often unsuccessful however).
My wife is willing to have the procedure. In fact, she is insisting on the procedure for herself.
Get the snip yourself you wimp.