what will be our living conditions, if... (->300 years)

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Avatar, Dec 9, 2003.

  1. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3302497.stm

    What will our society turn in to?
    the methods to stop human overpopulation are already discussed in Biology forum, this thread is on the situation , if it is not done.

    Let's say people find themselves unprepared in such an overcrowded world

    wars over food? (yes), living space? (not obligatory, there is Syberia etc), over normal living conditions? (of course)
    will governments still be able to control their citizens, maybe they all will be police states? (probably) anarchy? (could be)

    how would one survive in such a world. 300 years.... maybe Mars needs to be colonized , although I doubt that so fast terraforming van take place

    will life span of casual workers drop to aprox 25 years (pollution, living conditions, lack of food)
     
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  3. Hevene Registered Senior Member

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    By the rate we are cutting down trees, and the war and pollution, I think the human civilization is going to be completly destroyed in 300 years, if not sooner.
     
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  5. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    naah, don't think so
    if humans with practiculary no technology could live through ice ages...
     
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  7. Konek Lazy user Registered Senior Member

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    Consider how many species they wiped out during those ice ages... and their poplulation numbers were not as large then as now. Limited resources cannot sustain large populations.
     
  8. and2000x Guest

    Actually, we only use 5% of the earth's forest. The actual problem involved with the environment is the destruction of coral reefs (82% loss in last 100 years

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    ) . If environmental problems do get extreme, there will just be a regime change. You seem to overreact.
     
  9. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

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    We are at a point where it is very unlikely that the human race will go extinct (baring something that kills all large lifeforms)
     
  10. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    I think this is a prime opportunity for genetic engineering to shine. What we need now is a creature above us on the food chain! That would put our population back where it belongs.

    Of course, that whole species extinction thing is a serious problem, since such a predator might eat all of the other animals in the world much as we do. So, we would have to make sure that the predator would eat only humans and not other animals.

    A highly conserved series of genes that gave the creatures sexual pleasure from eating human flesh would be a pretty good way of doing things; there's probably a biochemical marker that would distinguish human beings from other animals with a high degree of regularity.

    Humans deal very poorly with the biting cats in close combat; hence, a throat-ripping design would surely be effective. Bone deposition in the skin might protect against such knives and small arms as most people would be inclined to carry. Lastly, an appearance that would induce brief but paralyzing terror would only increase in effectiveness after the creatures became well known about.

    I say it is a duty, nay, an imperative, that science be turned to that purpose that all movie directors always knew it was for - making human-devouring monsters. All of the problems of pollution and environmental exploitation would melt away as the monsters descended upon the human race in an orgy of sex-crazed eating.

    And you'd be making a monster very, very happy. Who doesn't want that?
     
  11. guthrie paradox generator Registered Senior Member

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    4,089
    Or, you could just use souped up old plagues, like flu, smallpox, TB. And the economy would boom as we tried to keep up with treating them.

    We only use 5% of the forests? For what? How much have we actually damaged badly enough that they are no longer pristine in any way?
     
  12. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    The Earth is made up of 75 percent water so if land is 25 percent and of that about 10 percent is somewhat livable to we humans then any destruction to the ecosystem would be very dangerous. If we humans keep cutting up the forests , which I think are less that 5 percent of the whole, then we will be in big trouble in the very near future.

    What is needed is better education and the way to let people understand that if they take , take , take , then there's not going to be much left in 300 years.
     
  13. Hevene Registered Senior Member

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    I agree.
     
  14. miss khan Registered Senior Member

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    143
    But its new technology thats bringing us down. The side effects of having SUVS & everything else convenient is whats causing the resources we depend on, to die out. Humans lived through the ice ages BECAUSE they had no technology. (unless you count stone weapons which isn't exactly technology in modern standards).
    The reason we won't make it past 300 years is because we'll have nothing left to live off of. China is currently experiencing a desperate water shortage & in about 20 or so years water will be so short China will need to import miliions of tons of grain (because it cant grow it on its own w/o water) which will put the rest of the world into a massive deficit of grain, causing food riots, worldwide hunger epidemics.. you get the picture.
    So, soon as China's water runs out, we're all goners. It was nice knowing you

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  15. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    An SUV is an application of technology, not technology itself; if someone burns down my house I don't curse the fire...
     
  16. miss khan Registered Senior Member

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    Humans lived through the ice ages BECAUSE they had no applications of technology.
    better?
     
  17. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    1,996
    That's not the right direction of inquiry in any case... the China problem has to do with population volume, not technology; technology and its applications are only to blame for allowing the system to exist before it falls apart. This is more a matter of evolution, if we're trying to examine the human's natural state.

    As for environmental damage... it has always been a personal choice, hasn't it? Some "people" are much more powerful than others, but trading off environmental responsibility for comfort goes back to the invention of photosynthesis. It's hardly even a thing that humans perfected...
     
  18. Hevene Registered Senior Member

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    The problem is how we use the technology. We are currently very short sighted, we satisfy with short term comfort and is willing to risk long-term comfort in order just to feel "good", just like a baby wants a lolly and wants it NOW, without realising it can damage the teeth.

    BigBlueHead

    It is a personal choice, but each choice add up to become the collective choice and it is that which is affecting the direction of human evolution. We all know that cutting down trees is dangerous, but we do that anyway. We know we shouldn't waste natural resources, but we do that anyway. We worry too much about personal gain, without realising that short term personal gain is long term loss. Our technology is too advanced comparing with our spiritual evolution. We cannot handle the technology, unless we all do something today, the destruction of our ways of life would't be too far ahead.
     
  19. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    1,996
    Millions of years ago, tiny algae poisoned the rest of the Earth with toxic oxygen... they probably killed most of the anaerobic life on the planet... the environmental damage was vast. The Earth has never recovered; their pollution continues to this day, which is just as well for us because we need it to live.

    Things always change. If humanity manages to cut down enough trees that we all suffocate, the Earth will go on somehow, it always has before. We should worry about ourselves... it's not really about spirituality, just self-interest.
     
  20. Hevene Registered Senior Member

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    I disagree with that completely. That's the exact attitude which had created the world's problems. Spirituality creates beliefs and beliefs creates behaviours. With beliefs that doesn't work, it creates behaviours that doesn't work. We cannot make a long-erm change in behaviours withough addressing the beliefs tha underlie them. No one doesn anything inappropriate given their model of the world. Therefore what we have to do is to change our model of the world, and that is based on our beliefs. Only through a change in spirituality, we can change our world.
     
  21. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

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    Wrong. They lived because they DID of applications of technology such as clothing, fire/flint stone, shelters...

    A naked human doesn't last very long in the snow.

    Our technology is too advanced comparing with our spiritual evolution. We cannot handle the technology, unless we all do something today, the destruction of our ways of life would't be too far ahead.
    No offense, but most technology is handled just fine thank you. Like everything else, it is usally a small portion of the population which causes the problem. Unless you have some scientific information to back this up, you just fall into the doomsayer category.
     
  22. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

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    Or you could base your worldview on something real, like facts. What exactly do you propose the new belief system be based on? Why do you think that this new belief system is actually right?
     
  23. Hevene Registered Senior Member

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    I didn't say the new belief system is right. There is no right and wrong, but what works and what doesn't. This include everything. Say a door, if it's not opening and closing properly, you don't say it's wrong, you say it doesn't work. Just like a belief systems, you can clearly observe that it doesn't work to create a peaceful, loving world, but is doing exactly the opposite. It is not wrong, it is just not working.

    We should nolonger base on belief system on something that is thousands of years old, like many organised religion. We should start noticing things that will work to create a peaceful world. Things such as:
    Human beings are not separated from each other.
    There is enough of what human beings need to be happy.
    All human beings are great.
     

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