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Yes, exactly! Dogmatic statements coming out of science should be suspect - science doesn't deal in eternal truths, that's the other shop's jurisdiction.
Flying is a novelty, it will never have any commercial value.
Man will never escape earth's gravity.
Never is far too long a stretch of time to make predictions over.
As was said, we could go to mars. And we could build cities under water. We could build colonies on the moon. We could build a city on the Namibian coast. We could do lots and lots of things that we don't do.
But we won't. There is no reason. It used to be, everyone believed we would over populate the earth and be forced to leave. But that is not the case - we won't. So there is no compelling reason to go to mars.
In the 60's there was the cold war and the space race. Those days are over.
Globalization is coming to an end and population will begin to decline shortly. And never in the entire history of the world has this happened without some outside event.
I guess someone must have once said the world's population will never stop growing, too.
In the 60's there was the cold war and the space race. Those days are over.
Globalization is coming to an end and population will begin to decline shortly. And never in the entire history of the world has this happened without some outside event.
I guess someone must have once said the world's population will never stop growing, too.
If you use up all the consumables & foul the nest sufficiently, contaminate the very air & water, then Yes, the population will peak & then decline.
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Originally Posted by southwest88 View Post
If you use up all the consumables & foul the nest sufficiently, contaminate the very air & water, then Yes, the population will peak & then decline.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307
Actually it is going to do that, anyway.
One thing that doesn't lie is the math.
Civilization doesn't have to end. We might learn to live within our means, or @ least within the carrying capacity of the World. Looking around just now, that outcome doesn't seem likely. But it might change, if we apply ourselves to the task.
Quote:
Originally Posted by southwest88 View Post
If you use up all the consumables & foul the nest sufficiently, contaminate the very air & water, then Yes, the population will peak & then decline.
Civilization doesn't have to end. We might learn to live within our means, or @ least within the carrying capacity of the World. Looking around just now, that outcome doesn't seem likely. But it might change, if we apply ourselves to the task.
No, I don't believe civilization will end at all. I didn't mean that. I meant the world's population will decline, and decline and decline. The authors of Empty Planet don't believe it will ever stop declining. I think at some point it will, but life on earth will be very very different with almost no globalization.
The earth will be fine. Humanity will gather mostly in the temperate zones, and never leave the planet again. How long?...... Few hundred years. Another way of looking at it is, "We had our chance to bond together, pool our resources and go explore". But that time has now passed.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Listener2307
As was said, we could go to mars. And we could build cities under water. We could build colonies on the moon. We could build a city on the Namibian coast. We could do lots and lots of things that we don't do.
But we won't. There is no reason. It used to be, everyone believed we would over populate the earth and be forced to leave. But that is not the case - we won't. So there is no compelling reason to go to mars.
In the 60's there was the cold war and the space race. Those days are over.
Globalization is coming to an end and population will begin to decline shortly. And never in the entire history of the world has this happened without some outside event.
I guess someone must have once said the world's population will never stop growing, too.
So you believe the days are gone when we did things simply to see if we could?
When we went places because we'd never been there?
Hell, we've spent far more blood, $$$, and effort on wars that there was no compelling reason to enter and apparently learned little from the misplaced effort..
So you believe the days are gone when we did things simply to see if we could?
When we went places because we'd never been there?
Hell, we've spent far more blood, $$$, and effort on wars that there was no compelling reason to enter and apparently learned little from the misplaced effort..
Those days are ending. Forever. Yes. That's what I believe. That particular subject is more a function of population decline than anything else.
History is the past. We are now entering a period of natural population decline that has never before seen in human history. So the things that we have done in the past will remain forever in the past.
You and I may want to go to mars, but the contracting population and economy of the future will make it impossible.
Those days are ending. Forever. Yes. That's what I believe. That particular subject is more a function of population decline than anything else.
History is the past. We are now entering a period of natural population decline that has never before seen in human history. So the things that we have done in the past will remain forever in the past.
You and I may want to go to mars, but the contracting population and economy of the future will make it impossible.
Capitalism is about raw materials, markets, manufacturing. If the future economy is based on anything like capitalism, there will be a push to expand the physical boundaries of our reach, to access materials for manufacture, processing, etc. So mining asteroids, comets, & any other solar system components that we can reach & exploit with then-current technology, is likely to happen.
Looking back, most of the industrialized world has adopted a Western tech/economy POV, @ least until they reach some reasonable economic/tech parity with the West. If that should change drastically, it's possible humanity will learn to live within its means. But technology often offers solutions that go beyond the apparent current limits. That's the trade-off - we (humanity, governments) don't always think about the trade-offs beforehand.
Those days are ending. Forever. Yes. That's what I believe. That particular subject is more a function of population decline than anything else.
History is the past. We are now entering a period of natural population decline that has never before seen in human history. So the things that we have done in the past will remain forever in the past.
You and I may want to go to mars, but the contracting population and economy of the future will make it impossible.
The super-powers of the 21st and 22nd Centuries will be those nations and alliances that go into space and exploit it for economic and military purposes. I believe that the exploitation of space will vastly expand our economies, providing fresh hope for new generations and solving the birth problem.
It will take a while to achieve economy of scale, but eventually we will be robotically mining the Moon and the asteroids, regularly shipping valuable materials back to near-Earth stations where they will be used to build out a space infrastructure.
Some of the mined materials will be dropped back to Earth as soon as a cheap method is developed. Once the infrastructure is built, it will be self-sustaining, solar and nuclear powered, and self-repairing. The main expense will be the few humans needed to direct the show, and much of that will be done remotely from comfortable offices on Earth.
Space manufacturing will be used to make high tech devices that require the purity of vacuum and zero-gravity, such as highly refined crystalline structures. Also, it will be used for dangerously radioactive processes.
I doubt that Mars will ever be a permanent home for humans, beyond a research base or two, but orbital stations around Mars will be a stepping stone to the outer planets. A base on Phobos might also be useful.
But for long term habitats, humans will require orbital rotating stations with near-Earth gravity. Mars, the Moon, etc. can't provide those conditions.
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Are we already past the tipping point?
