Why civilization itself is unsustainable

TFian said:
Sure but I don't see how that equates to some techno utopian star trek religion....
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So because it's an objective possibility that we can improve vastly our quality of life and/or travel to other worlds this makes such ideas religious? What?
What Gaia religion? Plenty of evidence we're doomed though http://energybulletin.net/stories/2011-04-27/there’s-something-happening-here…
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You're the one saying we're doomed and the Earth is going to move on without us. That's a Gaia religion d00d don't you know it?

Where was the irrefutable evidence that we are objectively doomed as a species? You must have made a mistake, that link was to a blowhard environmentalist's blog.

The progressive alternative media have become tedious reading lately.
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It was, at one point, easy and fun to read? Amazing!
 
Joey McGee said:
So because it's an objective possibility that we can improve vastly our quality of life and/or travel to other worlds this makes such ideas religious? What?
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The ability to utilize the magic in Harry Potter would also vastly improve our quality of life, but that doesn't make it at all possible. If I'm at one spectrum of the religiosity meter, then you're on the far other end. Religion of progress is your religion


Joey McGee said:
Where was the irrefutable evidence that we are objectively doomed as a species? You must have made a mistake, that link was to a blowhard environmentalist's blog.
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I guess you missed his arguments and sources.
 
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TFian said:
That's not evidence at all, that's just someone making a bet based on a prediction.

Also, Stewart Brand is a wart on the ******* of humanity.
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Is that right? When do you think world population will peak? Or don't you?
 
TFian said:
The ability to utilize the magic in Harry Potter would also vastly improve our quality of life, but that doesn't make it at all possible. If I'm at one spectrum of the religiosity meter, then you're on the far other end.
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I don't think you get what I'm saying so I'll spell it out for you. Believing that the earth is doomed that we can't save ourselves and that Gaia will move on without us is a religion, and many peolpe subscribe to it. Thinking that it's possible to vastly improve quality of life and travel to other planets is just speculating on the facts of nature. There is no fact of nature that would preclude those things from happening. Therefore you have zero argument against me.

I guess you missed his arguments and sources.
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Why didn't you just put the sources here instead of forcing me to dig through some opinionated crap someone wrote their blog in order to find your objective, irrefutable evidence? And there are four links in that blog post and none of them go to any kind of "irrefutable, objective evidence"

So what kind of an argument is that bro? "you didn't spend weeks reading the same blogs as me so how would you know how to think exactly like me" is pretty much the weight of that one.
 
Did you write this yourself? It's on your profile and there are no results in Google

What a piece of **** is man, in form and moving, how like a filthy vermin. How like a disgusting bacterium is he. Playing out the grotesque misery of his life, in this world of ours, which is not but a cesspool.
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Whoever wrote that has problems.
 
TFian said:
In Gray’s view it is not up to us at all. Our role was cast millennia ago, and we’re merely playing it out. Quoting EO Wilson “Darwin’s dice have rolled badly for Earth”, Gray goes on: “The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialization, Western civilization, or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate.”

There's just no way to beat that!
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TFian said:
That's not evidence at all, that's just someone making a bet based on a prediction.
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Am I the only one to see irony here?
 
lionking said:
Is that right? When do you think world population will peak? Or don't you?
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I'm not sure what you mean by "peak". I believe the world population will hit an extremely unsustainable limit, and a large mass of humans will die off.
 
soylent said:
The myth of the noble savage and the simple life is what drives you to post this rubbish; it is in the subtext of all the threads you start.
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In what way am I promoting the "myth" of the noble savage?
 
TFian said:
In what way am I promoting the "myth" of the noble savage?
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In this topic or in general?

In this topic it would be your points #1 and #2.

In general it is your repeated insistence of returning to an unsustainable and miserable form of low-tech living; that is neither good for man nor for the planet.
 
TFian said:
There's plenty of evidence though...

http://www.amazon.com/Straw-Dogs-Thoughts-Humans-Animals/dp/0374270937/
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A link to a book doesn't constitute evidence. And from the description of the book, it seems to be nothing more than a pompous version of this:
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mike3 said:
Where would it come from? Nuclear? Even with nuclear, how do you get launch costs down so low the average person can afford space travel? There's more to launch costs than just the energy cost. How do you get rockets to be as "cheap as dirt"? Rockets don't just appear when they're needed. And how long it'd take to get even one other planet up to snuff for moving vast quantities of people there? It could be a hundred years or more before we get any of that stuff done. Consider how slowly advances have been in space travel over the last few decades. E.g. the fastest space probe we have launched is not much faster than the Voyager probes of 30 years ago. And that's just a robot. Manned missions have been really limited, too. To make a dent in population we're gonna need to get to massive, cheap, common spaceflight for millions and millions of people -- a "space fleet" with numerous massive vessels. Such a revolution doesn't seem possible "overnight". I'd wager a hundred years or more to get to this level unless something extremely revolutionary comes along (do you want to bet on that? Especially considering how incremental technological change seems to be.).
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I don't think space colonization is an effective or practical solution to overpopulation on Earth. Internal space is one of the most critical considerations in spacecraft design, any aerospace engineer will tell you there is just never enough of it. Taking billions of people from presumably cramped cities on earth and transplanting them into even more cramped space installations and then having to support them once there is wasteful, counterproductive and unnecessary.

We have a proven record here on Earth of birth rates slowing and then eventually reversing as modern social reforms and technology is introduced. The situation as it is is already on its way to solving itself.

Without needing to cart hundreds of millions of the great unwashed throughout the solar system, the future of space travel is clearly nuclear. Making it cheaper and involve less effort is a goal we need to achieve, and nuclear is part of how that will be done.

Six researchers in Russia have locked themselves in a bunker for more than 500 days while they pretend to fly to mars to see what psychological stresses might afflict a future space crew. While in the United States, a veteran shuttle astronaut and former NASA engineer has designed a nuclear powered plasma rocket that can carry men to Mars and back in less than 80 days. A rocket that needs to carry less than three months of food and water for each crewman/passenger is a helluva lot cheaper and easier to build than one that needs to carry more than six times as much.
 
TFian said:
Yup, I wrote (modified) it.
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The modern view is to look at our lower natures with compassion and seek to overcome through culture, literature and above all science. You belong to a cult that uses nature worship and anti-humanism as a dopamine fueled escape from the difficult work of improving quality of life on earth, which I find disgusting and pathological.

And a book isn't evidence, just like a blowhard blogger's rantings isn't evidence. You don't know how to make a case. There are a lot of books and websites that will help you do so. Good luck with that.
 
TFian said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "peak". I believe the world population will hit an extremely unsustainable limit, and a large mass of humans will die off.
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Yeah? When? How many people? Evidence (apart from your wizard mentor)?
 
Joey McGee said:
The modern view is to look at our lower natures with compassion and seek to overcome through culture, literature and above all science.
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No.

Joey McGee said:
You belong to a cult that uses nature worship and anti-humanism as a dopamine fueled escape from the difficult work of improving quality of life on earth, which I find disgusting and pathological.
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If I'm part of a cult, who's my leader?

Joey McGee said:
And a book isn't evidence, just like a blowhard blogger's rantings isn't evidence. You don't know how to make a case. There are a lot of books and websites that will help you do so. Good luck with that.
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Well, the book has plenty of solid evidence *in it*...
 
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