Are we a lost civilisation?

[dibbers006]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 09 October 2024 at 10:35

[drivin_me_nuts]

Don't worry. Open the Wail, you'll feel so much better.

Or alternatively, write that your want to be buried in a muslin sack, exercise your perogative to open a vein and die comfortably numb in the knowledge that you're doing your bit for recycling.

Choices, choices

HTH

[Jinx]

dibbers006 said:

What hope our tenuous grasp on life.

6 billion and increasing - doesn't sound very tenuous to me I've said this before and I'll say it again:
We sit in our crowded homes in our crowded cities - travel in small metal boxes on thin strips of crowded tarmac, travel in the open air in thin metal cramped cylinders to other crowded cities and convince ourselves the world is over crowded... yet all 6 billion of us can fit in a space not much bigger than the Isle of Wight.
The earth isn't over crowded - the artificial boundaries we have created just limit our horizons.

[blindswelledrat]

Jinx said:

6 billion and increasing - doesn't sound very tenuous to me I've said this before and I'll say it again:
We sit in our crowded homes in our crowded cities - travel in small metal boxes on thin strips of crowded tarmac, travel in the open air in thin metal cramped cylinders to other crowded cities and convince ourselves the world is over crowded... yet all 6 billion of us can fit in a space not much bigger than the Isle of Wight.
The earth isn't over crowded - the artificial boundaries we have created just limit our horizons.

Interesting, poetic and a bit irrelevant.
It isn't crowded in the sense of physical space or boundaries, its about phenominal consumption of resources which are often finite.
We cannot consume and indeed keep accelerating consumption at the same levels indefinitely.

[Liokault]

If population growth is a bubble waiting to burst.

[havoc]

Jinx said:

The earth isn't over crowded - the artificial boundaries we have created just limit our horizons.

Hmmm...read up on carrying capacity sometime...and then decide whether you'd rather another 3-billion people on the planet or the continued existence of what remains of our wildlife?!? Because it IS an either/or decision...

[OnTheOverrun]

Jinx said:

yet all 6 billion of us can fit in a space not much bigger than the Isle of Wight.

Bugger off, we're full.

[JB!]

havoc said:

Jinx said:

The earth isn't over crowded - the artificial boundaries we have created just limit our horizons.

Hmmm...read up on carrying capacity sometime...and then decide whether you'd rather another 3-billion people on the planet or the continued existence of what remains of our wildlife?!? Because it IS an either/or decision...

how do you stop 3bn growth???

[Romanymagic]

JB! said:

havoc said:

Jinx said:

The earth isn't over crowded - the artificial boundaries we have created just limit our horizons.

Hmmm...read up on carrying capacity sometime...and then decide whether you'd rather another 3-billion people on the planet or the continued existence of what remains of our wildlife?!? Because it IS an either/or decision...

how do you stop 3bn growth???

Soylent Green!

[havoc]

JB! said:

havoc said:

Jinx said:

The earth isn't over crowded - the artificial boundaries we have created just limit our horizons.

Hmmm...read up on carrying capacity sometime...and then decide whether you'd rather another 3-billion people on the planet or the continued existence of what remains of our wildlife?!? Because it IS an either/or decision...

how do you stop 3bn growth???

Oh, there are plenty of ways...foremost among them is to just stop shipping modern medicine to the third world, where most of the growth is happening. Of course, except for the Indian subcontinent most of the 3rd world don't consume anywhere near as much as the West...so that's not perfect.


What we really need is a damn good war...

[Odie]

havoc said:

What we really need is a damn good war...

That will also push technology forward at a nice rate too and push us through the current technological stagnation.

[JB!]

Odie said:

havoc said:

What we really need is a damn good war...

That will also push technology forward at a nice rate too and push us through the current technological stagnation.

i hear those pesky russians called your mum fat... are you gonna take that?

[Edge99]

Jinx said:

yet all 6 billion of us can fit in a space not much bigger than the Isle of Wight.

I'd have thought we'd be on Zanzibar by now

[Captain Flashman]

the market will not save itself. we are well and truly in a race to the bottom, destroying yourself or things is equally pointless. You create your only reality and fill it with meaning, you have no obligation to anyone but yourself.

Who really cares about society? Or civilisation? Or who wins big brother? Its all the same, just pick something to care about and care for it.

[Arj256]

An easy way to stop growth is to run out of oil..

[Jinx]

havoc said:

Jinx said:

The earth isn't over crowded - the artificial boundaries we have created just limit our horizons.

Hmmm...read up on carrying capacity sometime...and then decide whether you'd rather another 3-billion people on the planet or the continued existence of what remains of our wildlife?!? Because it IS an either/or decision...

Nonsense - it's the allocation and distribution of resources that create profitable market conditions creating an illusion of scarcity

rizzo the rat said:

I'm eating the apples to create scarcity to drive up the price

The planet is huge and we haven't got close to our food and energy production capabilities - even if all we do is reorganise what we are using at the moment (irrespective of national borders and international "ownership" rights) there is plenty to go round. Don't be fooled by the cultural zeitgeist of "doom" the human race is a little more ingenious than you give it credit for.

[funkyrobot]

Ultimately, unless we can leave the planet, we are fked.

We have the power to wipe out most life on the planet at the push of a button. However, the universe (nature) has much more power to wipe us out whenever it wants. If we don't destroy ourselves then something else will, eventually.

Does make you wonder what happened to the old advanced civilisations though, doesn't it. Whatever happened to the Egyptians and the Mayans etc?

[Pyro]

I Am God

Your Argument is Irrelevant

[Odie]

JB! said:

Odie said:

havoc said:

What we really need is a damn good war...

That will also push technology forward at a nice rate too and push us through the current technological stagnation.

i hear those pesky russians called your mum fat... are you gonna take that?

I actually have a feeling that the next major conflict we enter we will be fighting alongside our red comrades.

[paul.deitch]

Arj256 said:

An easy way to stop growth is to run out of oil..

Currently the most likely scenario to happen long before overpopulation.
Buy as much land as possible and start training to be a blacksmith now for guaranteed career opportunities.