So Will 2012 Be Just Another Year?

[Nosi]

I'm 43 and chose to have no children because I believed this was coming. Anyone who has children can't point fingers at me.

Geoff

I too have not had any children. I agree that UE has a good point that a little one's future probably stinks today. You do know it costs close to a million bucks to raise a single healthy child if you do it on the cheap. Handicapped children can cost far more to bring up. It's a crap shoot when a woman is pregnant that a disabled child could happen.

However, my reason for avoiding motherhood isn't so much as fear of what's going on here on Earth but my body. For reasons I won't get into because I would derail the thread six ways from Sunday.

 

[Nosi]

UE, can I ask you a question? Have you given up all hope in metaphysical phenomena?

Please tell me how metaphysical phenomena affects the condition of resources on Earth?

 

[Nosi]

Finally, words to live by!

(I didn't know I was supposed to be gentle)

Horse apples! You enjoyed it like a pig enjoys mud.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

I don't give what's not yet been earned.

I'm sorry, but if you aren't willing to have this discussion based on mutual respect, then I can't be bothered to read the rest of your post. If you make disrespectful posts directed at me then I'll either ignore them or respond disrespectully.

Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander...

 

[UndercoverElephant]

you know that 70 years ago the entire world was at war.....right ?
and 90 years before that the entire world was at war again and that shortly after that 3% of the worlds population died from the flu

or when was the last time one of your relatives was bombed in their own house?
see, not really all that bad is it

I don't know if that is a sarcastic post or a serious one. Right now it is not too bad because the system is being propped up with freshly-printed money. What is coming is going to be much worse than WWI and WWII combined (by which I mean total number of dead humans).

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Humm...

His think tank saw it coming, but his think tank is not part of mainstream economics. It is independent.

 

[dafydd]

I don't know if that is a sarcastic post or a serious one. Right now it is not too bad because the system is being propped up with freshly-printed money. What is coming is going to be much worse than WWI and WWII combined (by which I mean total number of dead humans).

One would almost think that you were looking forward to it, whatever it is.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Please tell me how metaphysical phenomena affects the condition of resources on Earth?

There are potentially two different classes of purported "paranormal" phenomena. The first would be those that involve a direct breach of the laws of physics (e.g. a truly "free" energy or perpetual-motion machine). The second would be those that involve a serious breach of probability - something happening which is so improbable that the person it happens to interprets it as paranormal but which does not actually break any of the laws of physics. This second category would be possible under some interpretations of QM, but not possible under some others. The most controversial of them all would be MWI, because if MWI is true then there are guaranteed to be some timelines where whole sequences of unbelievably-improbable events happen, and yet it is still all down to pure randomness and not "paranormal" causality.

What I'm trying to say is this: it is physically possible for some sorts of paranormal phenomena to exist without breaking the laws of physics. However, while these phenomena can "affect the condition of the resources on earth", they can't affect them in ways which would lead to a physically-inconsistent state of reality. And that means that even if they exist they can't "save" us from our energy crisis, because at the end of the day the only thing that could save us would be the truly free energy or the perpetual motion machine, and these are prohibited by the plain old laws of newtonian energy conservation.

So to answer Limbo's question, I don't believe the first category of paranormal phenomena exist. Neither science nor personal experience leads me to believe that there exist any physics-busting paranormal phenomena of the sort required to save industrialised civilisation from a resource crisis. But the non-physics-busting sort of paranormal phenomena could still exist, and they could alter the situation by bringing about a change in people's perception of what is happening and influencing their response to it.

I personally wish that this sort of intervention wasn't necessary. I wish that the human race could get its act together, figure out what is happening, and collectively act to change things. Unfortunately this requires a level of optimism and faith in human nature that I can't quite manage. I suspect that things need to get quite a lot worse before most people will wake up to the reality of the situation modern civilisation finds itself in.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

One would almost think that you were looking forward to it, whatever it is.

"IT" is the malthusian die-off of this massive glut of human beings.

I'm neither looking forward to it nor fearing it. I accepted that it was coming, and probably in my lifetime, well over two decades ago. That is a lot of time to get used to the idea. I don't see it in terms of "good" or "bad" because for the most part it is just the natural world doing what the natural world does. Some other species go through massive population boom-and-bust cycles due to changes in the prevailing conditions and we don't see that as good or bad because nature is a-moral. We only see this as "bad" because we're humans and we tend to think of humans as special and "above nature." And if I saw it as "good" then it could only be because it would be good for future generations of humans, again because nature is a-moral.

Put simply: I can't say it is good or bad. It just *IS*. It is going to happen because the laws of physics, combined with the reality of human society and politics, dictates that has to happen. There's no point in looking forward to it or panicking about it. We just have to accept it and prepare for it the best we can. And if some people want to go on pretending it isn't going to happen for a bit longer, then that's up to them. In a way I don't blame them, because accepting it means, for a lot of people, abandoning a lot of hopes and dreams they had about the future.

 

[Johny2x4]

I don't know if that is a sarcastic post or a serious one. Right now it is not too bad because the system is being propped up with freshly-printed money. What is coming is going to be much worse than WWI and WWII combined (by which I mean total number of dead humans).

Prove it. Now.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Prove it. Now.

How on earth could anyone go about "proving" a speculative prediction about what is likely to happen to human population numbers due to the coming resources crisis?

On one level it is completely obvious. Just look at the way human civilisation is growing, and depends on more growth just to survive. Then observe that the planet we live on is finite. Unless you believe there is going to shortly be an unprecedented change in human behaviour (e.g. no more wars) then some sort of catastrophe is inevitable.

Parroting the words "Prove it!" is not a sensible response to the above paragraph.

 

[Johny2x4]

How on earth could anyone go about "proving" a speculative prediction about what is likely to happen to human population numbers due to the coming resources crisis?

On one level it is completely obvious. Just look at the way human civilisation is growing, and depends on more growth just to survive. Then observe that the planet we live on is finite. Unless you believe there is going to shortly be an unprecedented change in human behaviour (e.g. no more wars) then some sort of catastrophe is inevitable.

Parroting the words "Prove it!" is not a sensible response to the above paragraph.

Translation: I got nothing to base my speculative claims and instead gonna keep parroting the same doom mantra all over again.

 

[ClarkDickensen]

On one level it is completely obvious. Just look at the way human civilisation is growing, and depends on more growth just to survive.

Why would it? Surely most of us would be interested in better and more affordable stuff, but if you freeze the economy in time, we still have what we have.

Then observe that the planet we live on is finite.

Finite != insufficient.

Unless you believe there is going to shortly be an unprecedented change in human behaviour (e.g. no more wars) then some sort of catastrophe is inevitable.

"Some sort of catastrophe" is a pretty weak prediction even by newspaper horoscope standards.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Why would it? Surely most of us would be interested in better and more affordable stuff, but if you freeze the economy in time, we still have what we have.

That would be great if it wasn't for the fact that our numbers are still increasing rapidly and nearly all of us want a better standard of living.

Finite != insufficient.

Of course. If we stop needing/trying to consume more then half the battle is won. I just don't see us stopping needing/trying to consume more.

"Some sort of catastrophe" is a pretty weak prediction even by newspaper horoscope standards.

I mean somehow lots of humans are going to end up dead. What I don't know is whether the primary mechanism will be war, disease, famine, all three, or something else.

I'd personally put my money on all three.

 

[dafydd]

I mean somehow lots of humans are going to end up dead. What I don't know is whether the primary mechanism will be war, disease, famine, all three, or something else.

I'd personally put my money on all three.

And this will be the first time that those three things will take place on this planet.

 

[ClarkDickensen]

Of course. If we stop needing/trying to consume more then half the battle is won. I just don't see us stopping needing/trying to consume more.

That poses a number of questions. What do we want to consume and why? Or rather, if we try to reduce consumption, is the kind of market economy we're running right now really a sensible M.O.? Bombarding people with advertisements and telling them afterwards not to buy so much stuff doesn't sound like a well-thought-out strategy.

I mean somehow lots of humans are going to end up dead. What I don't know is whether the primary mechanism will be war, disease, famine, all three, or something else.

If you keep the when & where vague enough, the likelihood of that happening should be 1.

 

[dafydd]

If you keep the when & where vague enough, the likelihood of that happening should be 1.

UE thinks that we will all be living in caves by 2016. At least that is the impression I get. He is very vague about what he is prophesying. There will be wars in the future, there may be famines but mankind has always suffered from calamities. He seems to idolize this Ahmed character who seems to know more about economics and politics than the rest of the world put together.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

That poses a number of questions. What do we want to consume and why?

Two answers to that.

1) Our genes naturally encourage us to be greedy and to desire status symbols, etc... This was once useful, but it is counter-productive in the richer countries, manifesting at its most extreme in examples like obesity in the United States.

2) The existing economic system actively makes this natural tendency worse, because consumption is considered to be good on the grounds that it keeps the economy going. The economic system is designed to maximise profit, and to deliver wealth into the hands of the 1%. Ecological sustainability has nothing to do with profits. It's not on the corporate/business agenda, apart from as a means of selling things to certain parts of their customer base (leading to "greenwash.")

Or rather, if we try to reduce consumption, is the kind of market economy we're running right now really a sensible M.O.?

No, obviously.

Bombarding people with advertisements and telling them afterwards not to buy so much stuff doesn't sound like a well-thought-out strategy.

Exactly. Well...it's well thought out if your goal is to maximise the profits of the corporation you are in charge of, and you don't care about the long-term or wider consequences.

If you keep the when & where vague enough, the likelihood of that happening should be 1.

I can see no way the existing monetary system can be kept going beyond 2015, but politics is likely to mean it collapses sooner than that. By 2020, nobody will be left doubting that a major transition has started.

 

[dafydd]

I can see no way the existing monetary system can be kept going beyond 2015,.

That is merely your opinion. No evidence, and please do not tell me to watch that biased video again.

 

[Johny2x4]

I can see no way the existing monetary system can be kept going beyond 2015, but politics is likely to mean it collapses sooner than that. By 2020, nobody will be left doubting that a major transition has started.

You are completely divorced from reality.