Corona Virus

[OnMyWay]

1 hour ago, GeoffH said:

Without getting into specifics I would like to suggest an analogy.

A farmer will have land, that land will have a certain carrying capacity for a particular stock or certain growing ability for a particular crop.  If the farmer over grazes or over crops that land (without regenerating it with fertalizer etc) between seasons then eventually the quality and number of the animals or plants will start to drop, average size will decrease and disease will become more common.  Now the Earth isn't just one piece of land, it's all the land but the principle of over stocking and over use still applies in my opinion.

At some point there will be too many people in some areas for standards of living to be maintained in the long term because the density of people will be such that they're using more resources than the land they're living from can sustainably produce (which just means produce in the long term without an eventual decrease in production not something lefty greenie).  I'm channeling my farmer heritage here not a city greenie.

It has been suggested by people with a lot more knowledge than me that the Earth reached it's sustainable carrying capacity some time between 1960 and 1980.

Now if that is so then it would logically follow that at least some of the issues we're seeing now (larger waste dumps, decreasing fish and crop yields, increasing disease, more manmade CO2 etc etc) are only the logical consequence of 'too many people' (in at least some areas).  India and China come to mind in particular.

Of course we can't just reduce population, we're evolved to breed and increase but at some point that's going to come to a grinding halt, one way or another and I doubt it will be pleasant when it does.  But I expect I'll be dead before then so there's that...

 

Just my 2 cents.

I agree to a certain extent with most of this but not the capacity reached in 1960-1980 part.  I think it is still in the future.  Nature will continue to knock us back once in a while!

On a lighter note, we watched a futuristic sci-fi movie, called SnowPiercer, the past few days and it has a lot of themes you mentioned here in it.  We thought it was recent but I just looked it up, and it was from 2013!  It has a few big names in it.  I'm a bit cynical with movies like this, but I got some good laughs.  Watch the beginning and the end if you can't stomach the whole thing.

I was surprised that it has 7.1 * on IMDB!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/

Edited February 10, 2020 by OnMyWay

[intrepid]

OFF TOPIC;  When I was younger I worked at a local Texaco Service/Filling Station while in high school and college.  During the day there were always 3-6 retired men who would come in the lobby for several hours in the morning and afternoons. Sometimes customers would stay and chat long times with them.   I used to joke when asked by others why they were there and what they were doing for so long.  I would smile and just say they are solving the world's problems.  Same issues and topics that are still talked about today on many on our forum, like this one.  I love it. Sometimes it even got heated but everyone always left with a smile and came back again the next day to continue or start a new topic.  Makes me feel like a kid and young again just reading the responses of these wise men.  Carry on

Edited February 10, 2020 by intrepid

[bastonjock]

On the news ,97 have died today, of the 40,000 or so who have caught the virus ,3700 have been cleared 

Theres just been a news flash on the bbc ,a doctors medical center in Brighton has been closed down because of corono virus 

Anyone who has attended in the last 2 weeks and starts to feel unwell is asked to stay at home and await the ambulance 

Has the genie got out of the bottle here in the UK ?

[Tommy T.]

11 hours ago, GeoffH said:

Of course we can't just reduce population, we're evolved to breed and increase but at some point that's going to come to a grinding halt, one way or another and I doubt it will be pleasant when it does.  But I expect I'll be dead before then so there's that...

 

Those are exactly my thoughts, Geoff. Thanks for expressing them so clearly.

 

[Tommy T.]

9 hours ago, intrepid said:

When I was younger I worked at a local Texaco Service/Filling Station while in high school and college.  During the day there were always 3-6 retired men who would come in the lobby for several hours in the morning and afternoons.

I had the exact same experience at the Texaco gas station where I worked. But it was only on Sundays that "the boys" would show up, drink beers and talk. I was 16-18 during those years...

[Mike J]

10 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

I agree to a certain extent with most of this but not the capacity reached in 1960-1980 part.  I think it is still in the future.  Nature will continue to knock us back once in a while!

Estimates for the carrying capacity are all over the map.  I have seen them range from 2 billion all the way up to 40 billion.  Part of the problem in reaching a viable estimate is to define what standard of living for the population.   With existing technology the earth could be a paradise for say 3 - 4 billion people who are concerned about the environment, practice recycling, and renewable energy.    Science and technology can only kick the can so far down the road.  On the other hand if the super rich 1% live in luxury and the other 99% live in slums and eat nothing but rice or tofu we the earth could maybe sustain five times that number.  But at the higher number  you would reach a plateau where disease, starvation, civil unrest, crime, war, etc would keep knocking back the population.  As population continues to rise the "haves" versus the "have nots" and increased competition for disappearing resources to include food, water, energy, and nonrenewable resources  will almost certainly result in increased conflicts between countries.   I do not see that the people of earth will ever become a "share and share alike" group.  As a species we seem to be hard wired to not only protect what is ours but to try and take what someone else has that is better than what we have, especially when food starts to disappear.  Kind of like all animals I guess.  

[Tommy T.]

10 minutes ago, Mike J said:

As a species we seem to be hard wired to not only protect what is ours but to try and take what someone else has that is better than what we have, especially when food starts to disappear. 

In other words, we are still tribal - in the 21st century...

[GeoffH]

3 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

In other words, we are still tribal - in the 21st century...

It is my opinion that being 'tribal' is something that is so deeply a part of us that we will never ever get past it.

Sure in modern times these 'tribes' have different names, they're called schools, towns, cities, states, countries, the western democracies even 'the free world' but tribality still underlies and defines so much of what humanity does and how it interacts in groups.

 

[Tommy T.]

1 hour ago, GeoffH said:

It is my opinion that being 'tribal' is something that is so deeply a part of us that we will never ever get past it.

Sure in modern times these 'tribes' have different names, they're called schools, towns, cities, states, countries, the western democracies even 'the free world' but tribality still underlies and defines so much of what humanity does and how it interacts in groups.

 

Totally agree. But maybe you forgot to mention "business" and "corporations?" Talk about tribalism...

Edited February 11, 2020 by Tommy T.

[Marvin Boggs]

1 hour ago, Mike J said:

With existing technology the earth could be a paradise for say 3 - 4 billion people who are concerned about the environment, practice recycling, and renewable energy.    Science and technology can only kick the can so far down the road.  

According to the Georgia Guidestones, one of its credo's is to "maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature."  Many people think this marker, erected in 1980, is a kind of road map from the elite.  

I tend to think humanity will always find ways to be more productive.