Disappointment about our own species

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Mark UX, Aug 4, 2015.

  1. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    We are the problem. There's nothing special about a species who functions at various levels of sociopathy. Right now we're working on making the planet uninhabitable. Reason doesn't rule stupidity rules. We invented politics so we could be about as self centered as possible.
     
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  3. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    No such thing since humans are involved. Ishmael points out that the turn from hunter gatherers to farmers was the beginning of the end so to speak. The point where we take everything based on the creation myth that everything in the universe is ours to do with as we please.
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Hellstrom makes the argument that ultimately an Ant is better equipped to survive than man, BECAUSE it does NOT employ reason. They never ask the question "why"or "how".
    They just adapt.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2015
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  7. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    If we cure aging I predict reproductive rates will plummet.
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    There seems to be a contrdiction in that proposition.
    If we were to cure aging there could be no reproduction of any kind. In such a case, only a complete zero population growth rate would keep the population at a steady level.
    Professor Bartlett explains that ANY steady population growth results in the exponential function and eventual overcrowding (in a confined space).
    Even just a 1% growth rate results in a "doubling time" of 70 years. Today we have a growth rate of less than 1.4 %, which means that in less than 60 years the world's population will double. Indeed a bleak prospect.
     
  9. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Population is self regulating based on carrying capacity of the land.
    If we did not export food and medicines to areas with high population growth, that growth would slow, stop, then reverse it's self.
    Instead, we are increasing their local carrying capacity by going global, so the population will increase until it hits the global carrying capacity.
    Or: Certain unsustainable farming practices(my pet peeve is that we are making no effort to recharge the ogallala aquifer) will create shortages that will have the same effect.

    It seems that if we can pump water out of an aquifer, pumping in should also work.--------Probably best done carefully controlled by monitoring several dozens/hundreds of wells for pressure and draw down capacities as we recharge.
     
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Last edited: Aug 5, 2015
  11. Mark UX Registered Member

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    World population was about half a billion when Columbus discovered America. About 1 billion during Industrial Revolution, then it becames unstoppable. Industrial Revolution and its permanent effects on our civilization, marked the start point of our boundless growth. In America (continent), before Columbus discovery growth was sustained, equilibrated, and the diverses aboriginal tribes coexisted in a sustained way with nature: they were not smart as we currently are, but was exactly this limited intelligence which allowed them to simply consume what they needed from Nature: no more.
    • Hunt was justified by the survival instinct of satisfy hungry, NOT by pilling supermarket groceries that you can ONLY obtain by working > generating money. (The irony here is that our current "intelligent" civilization needs to work > to generate money > to buy what nature gives by free).
    • Starting from Industrial Revolution, the more intelligent we were becoming, the more auto-destructive we became.
    So human intelligence is a double edge knife (as seeing in the graph). There will be people that will assert that human intelligence is our more preciate gift, whilst people like me believes it is exactly this huge developing of our intelligence that has a counter-effect when coexisting with Nature. Nature does not require us to be smart, but to have wisdom.

    We will undoubtedly move our intelligence forward and our wisdom backward, but the price for it will be a point of no return.
     
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  12. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    silly
    nobody took a world wide census in 1050, 1150, 1250, 1359, 1450, 1550, etc..................
    ergo the chart is pure speculation.
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    You may be correct in questioning the accuracy of old census numbers. But that is irrelevant, IMO.

    We know that today we have roughly 7.3 billion people on earth and a steady growth rate of about 1.3 %.

    The following cannot be disputed:
    If this growth rate were to continue as it is today, by 2085 there will be 15 billion people on earth. This is not assumption, but pure math. And if we project this for another 70 years there would be 30 billion people. In another 70 years, 60 billion, etc.

    It is obvious that eventually there must be a reduction in growth rate, from any number of causes. We can voluntarily reduce the growth rate or nature will do it for us.
    What shall we choose?
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2015
  14. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    At least not the type of reason employed by humans. It may not sound like it but I'm an idealist, I think.
     
  15. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    The truth hurts.
     
  16. river

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    It seems to me that we Humans have to through this insanity.

    We are going through this insanity stage in our development as a thinking being.

    I imagine that ALL thinking beings have gone through this stage of thinking.

    Am I disappointed in Humanity , at times.

    We just need to get past this immaturity.

    Once we do we see and understand the bigger picture.
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I am not sure why you would think the human race is in its infancy. We are evolved from hominids, a species which has been around for some 6 million years.

    IMO, because we no longer need to adapt to the environment, the part of our brain that was once used to refine basic survival skills, is now focused on accumulation of comforts.

    As I understand it, the concept of decision making rests on "choice in the direction of greatest satisfaction". An argument can be made that this could easily translate into "greed".

    Thus instead of honing our natural senses, we make toys to acquire wealth and power far greater than is required to live a full productive life. Greed and Arrogance will become the demise of billions of humans, and perhaps 75% of all other life on earth along with it.

    That kind of legacy would not speak of wisdom and aforethought. As Carlin said, "a failed species". He did have a more optimistic view of a future earth without humans. The earth has been through worse than us.

    Here, as atheist, I agree completely with the biblical (philosophical) identification of secular deadly sins. And, it seems, we are quick to forget history and what it should have taught us by now in every respect of human cultures and interactions, as well as our ecosystem.

    Our most advanced technologies are being developed for purposes of war. What a waste of Human Potential.
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2015
  18. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    I can see why more people would choose not to reproduce if aging were cured but I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that they couldn't.

    Oh wait, are you suggesting a cure that would stunt fetal development? In that case, I wasn't suggesting a literal cure for aging but more cell maintenance and organ regeneration after a certain age.
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    No, I have no quarrel with your argument, what I meant with "couldn't" is the fact that if fewer people die the greater the population increase, unless you can arrive at a zero population growth. Which would demand no procreation, except to replace the few who died.
    China, which suffers most from the exponential function, is already practising a form of coerced infertility.

    Our ability and spectacular success in altering our environment and ever longer survival rates, overpopulation will eventually turn everything upside down.

    What we considere Good for our personal lives, makes the overpopulation problem worse.
    What we consider Bad for our personal lives, helps solve the overpopulation problem.

    These are Prof. Bartlett's words and in context I can see the irrefutable logic. The inescapable fact is that the earth is a confined space with a limit to its resources. When we reach those limits, bad things will happen.

    Check this out. (Note days till end of oil)
    http://www.worldometers.info/
     
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2015
  20. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    IF the assumption is that population growth will continue at the same rate, then that in and of it's self is an assumption.
    The population growth rate has been slowing, and in many countries is negative, including almost all of the "developed" world.
    Current best guess is that we top out at less than 10 billion.
     
  21. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    I'm more disappointed with the actions of individuals that lead to the whole. Humans tend, for example, to seek constant bimodality rather than appreciate the quantitative nature of reality. It's frustrating, and hugely damaging.
     
  22. krash661 [MK6] transitioning scifi to reality Valued Senior Member

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    2,973
    " Humans are too inquisitive not to want to know. You seem to find no tranquillity in anything. You struggle against the inevitable. You thrive on conflict. You are selfish, yet you value loyalty. You are rash, quick to judge, slow to change. It's amazing you've survived. Be that as it may, as species, we have no common ground. You are too aggressive. Too hostile. Too militant "

    " The human race has a gift, Professor, a gift that sets it above all the other creatures that abound upon this planet: the gift of thought, of reasoning, of understanding. The highly-developed brain. But the human race has ceased to develop. It struggles for petty comfort and false security; there is no time for thought. Soon there will be no time for reasoning, and Man will lose sight of the truth! "

    " i can feel myself,
    reaching that stage in the dim future of mankind.
    when the mind will cast off the hampering of the flesh;become all thought and no matter..a vortex,of pure intelligence in space..
    it's the goal of evolution,
    man's final destiny is to become what we imagined in the beginning.
    when we first learned the idea of the angels,
    but that is far ahead and i'm impatient to go the whole way. "

    " within our own dimension of space,the planet earth is an early stage. where by which we as beings will live until we advance to the higher dimensions "

    " everyone is at different stages of consciousness.
    there is a certain stage you reach where your intent is to only speak your truth,
    not to convince others of it.
    you begin to realize that everyone has their own path.
    in other words, you cannot convince a baby they should be walking
    when they are at the stage of crawling.
    to convince them of that truth, is irrelevant. "
     
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  23. cosmictotem Registered Senior Member

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    Well, a cure for aging still wouldn't rule out death by natural disaster, accident or war. And of course the longer one lives the greater one's chances of dying from those other causes.

    Also it is conceivable that the longer one expected to live the longer one could wait to have offspring. Why have a child at twenty if individual lifespans are extended to a thousand years? No hurry.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2015

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