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If it isn't, (and I believe it isn't), we need to accept that fact, stop investing in it and start investing into a system that is. Have we reached a tipping point in opinion yet?
The issue is the RAW NUMBER of warm bodies that need food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, family, etc...
and enough actually meaningful work to be able to provide those things for themselves.
The US with just 200 Million people and a world with just 4-5 Billion people could be a very different place...
if we're willing to embrace the lessons we now see by having 310 Million and 7 Billion people.
Last edited by MrRational; 06-09-2011 at 11:57 AM..
The issue is the RAW NUMBER of warm bodies that need food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, family, etc...
and enough actually meaningful work [b]to be able to provide those things for themselves.[/B
The US with just 200 Million people and a world with just 4-5 Billion people could be a very different place...
if we're willing to embrace the lessons we now see by having 310 Million and 7 Billion people.
Might be confused with a Quantity -- or RAW NUMBER, as you say -- and the Quality or Qualities of the people involved.
Prior lessons have pointed to folks being total selfish jerks and mass killing with a Whole Lot Less folks on the planet.
The US near genocide and extermination of the "Indians." The Nazis and Japanese in WW2. Israel trying to exterminate the Palestinians, now.
Different centuries, same program all under the same claims of scarcity and resources. But it never was and never really is.
Might be confused with a Quantity -- or RAW NUMBER, as you say -- and the Quality or Qualities of the people involved.
Nope. Not confused. 7 Billion people will need more fresh water than 5 billion.
Even 7 Billion altruistic saints will still need more fresh water than 5 billion callous jerks will.
We can finesse the specifics of that that reality if we like...
but the basic truth of it remains as was once so famously said: self evident.
Quote:
Prior lessons have pointed to folks being total selfish jerks and mass killing with a Whole Lot Less folks on the planet.
No argument there.
Do you think we capable of doing better than then?
My thought, is that if we are capable of doing better than then...
it will be a whole lot easier to achieve with fewer people (that raw number thing again) clamoring for resources.
Last edited by MrRational; 06-09-2011 at 02:26 PM..
If it isn't, (and I believe it isn't), we need to accept that fact, stop investing in it and start investing into a system that is. Have we reached a tipping point in opinion yet?
It is unsustainable without drastic changes.
People want too much, spend too much(of which they can't afford), think only of themselves, don't care about our infrastructure or environment...and we are too greedy. We will destroy ourselves if we don't make big changes.
Nope. Not confused. 7 Billion people will need more fresh water than 5 billion.
Then stop producing ethanol. Do you have any idea how much water an ethanol plant uses every day? And not just ethanol plants, but any number of petro-chemical and chemical plants use an extraordinary amount of water.
If it isn't, (and I believe it isn't), we need to accept that fact, stop investing in it and start investing into a system that is. Have we reached a tipping point in opinion yet?
You need to define "modern civilization."
Can the Planet support 7 Billion people living like Americans? No.
But the Planet can support 60 Billion people living like Japanese, or Germans or Dutch or Norwegians.
It isn't modernity that is the problem, it is excessive consumption.
Can the Planet support 7 Billion people living like Americans? No.
But the Planet can support 60 Billion people living like Japanese, or Germans or Dutch or Norwegians.
Not that you're points are wrong...
but the problem isn't with the Japanese, Germans, Dutch or Norwegians.
The "problem" is with the burgeoning 3rd world populations that DO want to live like Americans... or at least like Western Europeans and now that these (mostly Asian) people are beginning to individually accumulate enough real wealth to be able to do so... aren't in any mood to hear that they're too late arriving at the party to put their ladle into the punch bowl.
That said... rather than fighting the wheel of this desire for a western standard of living (even moderated some from the extremes of waste we're so well known for) by all the peoples in all these rising economies...
What real options are available to the entirety of the world...
when westerners aren't in any better mood to be giving up what we have made (or taken) for ourselves?
hmm?
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