REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Canada panics over overpopulation

POSTED BY: DREAMTROVE
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 12, 2023 08:15
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Saturday, December 19, 2009 3:17 AM

DREAMTROVE




Canada's Financial Post:

"The 'inconvenient truth' overhanging the U.N.'s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world"

It then goes on to suggest "A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy"




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Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:47 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


I happen to agree with their belief, tho' not necessarily the conclusion suggested. At its very base, this IS the problem, to me. Mankind has always polluted--admittedly "progress" has increased it exponentially--but the number of people on the planet is, in my opinion and given the fact we've always behaved as if the planet is here just for us, the major problem. I'm a big proponent of ZPG, having been there at its start and learning about it from Erlich's daughter, and it making sense to me then and now.

Your mileage may vary.




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Saturday, December 19, 2009 9:23 AM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:

Niki
I'm a big proponent of ZPG



In that case, the ideological gap between us is probably too big to bridge. I suspect ZPG of targeting particular populations. I'm more in favor of solving the food issue.

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Saturday, December 19, 2009 10:34 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Quote:

Niki
I'm a big proponent of ZPG



In that case, the ideological gap between us is probably too big to bridge. I suspect ZPG of targeting particular populations. I'm more in favor of solving the food issue.



I am somewhere in between your positions. Solving the food issue would be a priority, but I am hesitant to much of the genetic modification going on right now... Better solutions need to be tried

ZPG... could start with folk barely able to support themselves having 5 kids, and I mean in Canada and the US... not the third world.



Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Saturday, December 19, 2009 11:51 AM

CITIZEN


There's already enough food to feed everyone. Unfortunately between obesity epidemics and food mountains rotting in warehouses, it doesn't get where it's needed. Vis a Vis the food problem is that we'd rather people starve than give food away for free.

But the planet can't deal with infinite population. A sustainable world population where we all get to live the life we'd like to live in the west (highly technological and energy dependent) probably requires a max global population of 2 Billion.

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Saturday, December 19, 2009 12:46 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


There is an obsession with food, as if everyone in the world could just get their hands on some GM crops everything would be okay. It's a shockingly patronising world view that accepts everything would be okay if most people in the world were very poor and had standard of living that we wouldn't let a dog live under in the west, but they're fed, so everything is okay.

What about if we considered that everyone's standard of living should be the same as an average American ...that everyone should have the same right to consume what an average American does.

Given the current world population, our resources would last...? Anyone, anyone? A year or two at most and we'd be garbage planet. But still we demand growth and still we demand that our current standard of living should not be in any way jeopardized.

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Saturday, December 19, 2009 1:52 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by citizen:
There's already enough food to feed everyone. Unfortunately between obesity epidemics and food mountains rotting in warehouses, it doesn't get where it's needed. Vis a Vis the food problem is that we'd rather people starve than give food away for free.

But the planet can't deal with infinite population. A sustainable world population where we all get to live the life we'd like to live in the west (highly technological and energy dependent) probably requires a max global population of 2 Billion.




Thats a huge problem, but shipping food for the most part isn't the best answer. Growing crops and revitalizing arable land where the food is needed would be better... Jobs and local economys solve more problems than just hunger alone



Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Saturday, December 19, 2009 4:23 PM

DREAMTROVE


Gino,

I agree with you that GMO is being misused, but I don't favor a ban. After all, everything we eat just about is a GMO food. In the US, many of our foods are GMO foods created by ancient mezoamerican civilizations.

As per your Islamic law suggestion, I think it's overall sound: Don't have more children than you can support. My only concern would be, as with so many things: Who do you give the power to enforce such a policy.


Citizen,

Re: food shortages. The main problems currently I would put into three groups:

1. poor distribution system
2. Political disruption of centralized distribution, often for democidal reasons
3. Small groups of wandering primitive agricultural semi-nomadic herders rapidly accelerating the degeneration of land in low rainfall areas.

Additionally, obviously, deforestation and overfishing are major issues, and there will be additional issues if the human population passes 40 billion or so, but not problems that technology can't solve.

I'd propose broader solutions:

1. Each territory and population should be food-self-sufficient. This might mean major land revitalization issues for some places, but nothing we can't accomplish today, and though expensive, a drop in the bucket compared to your average war.

2. Food should be localized to the extent where one population cannot control the food supply for another. This is a major issue in Africa, right now, specifically Ethiopia and Zimbabwe in much the way it was a problem in the early Soviet Union.

3. Responsible GMO farming can be done by groups, populations or nations to help solve the problem, and those decisions and oversight should be done locally. Let the people of Eritrea decide what they can and can't do to their food, not some international entity that might not have the best interests of the Eritreans in mind, and, in a worst case scenario, might have controlling their population in mind. We're not about to be in danger of being attacked by giant faba beans


Overall, I think the human race as a biomass is nowhere near critical levels. It's just the manner in which humans use their resources. Consider mice as a decent correlation. The biomass of the world's mice (biomouse?) is currently around 2 to 3 times that of humans, but the situation is worse than that: Mice also have a metabolic rate about 10 times that of humans, so you're looking at more like 20-30 the total food consumption in terms of high value dry weight foods by mice vs. humans.

This is usually the basis for a projected carrying capacity of the Earth of around 100 billion humans, but I used 40 billion under the assumption that humans are not capable of living in as many ecosystems as mice, and are overall less efficient. Still, we have plenty of time to work on the proble,

But also, consider the environment impact profile of mice relative to humans. My house sits on 2 acres of land, which means that local to here, my yard supports over 10,000 mice which are outweighing the local human population by about three to five times. I have no reason to doubt any of this, or that they are consuming 25 times as much in foodstuffs.

But consider the visible profile of my property: The dominating structure, covering maybe 10% of the land, is my house, an a micro-desert called my driveway. There are several micro-forests called hedgerows, that are home to an incredibly wide variety of land, and then a cleared croquet court known as my lawn. The front yard is a separate ecosystem consisting of an artificial orchard environment, and my back yard contains another, my garden, and then a third larger thicket where I used to have goats, and a very extensive sylvan thicket that's the outer area of my lawn.

I'm making my presence abundantly clear, and using up a lot of the land for my own direct use. The mice, otoh, are practically invisible, outside of seeing them everywhere. But statistically, I know there are more than 20 for every one I see. But the above description would show an incredible visible impact of my presence on the land compared to that of mice, and even the presence of birds, squirrels etc. is barely noticeable, but still probably higher in food consumption than myself.

Interestingly, none of us are the properties dominant residents. Four separate species of ant live in my lawn, the most successful being the Argentine ant, accompanied by several dozen of the civilization's thousand or so domesticated specied. Aside from the omnipresent occasional ant to a ground level observer, a few overgrown hills, tiny holes for entry halls and more for ventilation, and the presence of domestic millipedes on the mushroom population, whiteflies, and aphids, they're really barely noticeable. They do fairly little in the way of foraging, and run a very efficient farming mycosystem undergound.

Also, there's a lesson here in ecobalance:

My fruit trees and tomato crop, while unaffected by the ants themselves, would be decimated by some of the domestic insects that the ants bring, were it not for the local predatory ladybug population. Both populations hibernate in the winter, but are active in the summer, but the ladybugs are supported by the local wild ecosystem.

My brother, OTOH, lives in California in an artificial ecosystem which the agriculturally advanced bioengineering civilization of argentine ants thrives on, but which will not support ladybugs independently. Thus if the ants declare war on ladybugs, as they will, though the ants will lose, they'll annoy the ladybugs enough that the ladybugs will leave. In my yard there's too much natural support for domestic populations of predatory insects for the invasive civilization to ever displace them.

The point of this meander into the entomology of my back yard is that the human disconnect with our own ecosystem is a short term asset but long term liability, and definitely out of balance with that of the rest of the world's population.

By mass, formicidae, into which ants fall, outweigh simians around 100 to 1, and it's probably less than that on my own lawn, but not radically so. In my area, if I were to include the forest that surrounds me, then I would say, yes, 100:1 is probably fair. Still, like the mice and related rodents, and the birds, they leave little trace or impact on their surrounding environment.


I support responsible GMO, and think all of these species are essentially doing the same. They aren't simply accepting the bounty of nature: I know that a squirrel knows that he is planting more nuts than he plans to dig up, and that this will result in trees. Every species, however, is living with some acceptance of the rules of nature, and many of these species are radically older than our own. If we want to live at population levels that they do, we need to reduce our impact, and not necessarily live strictly "off the land" but we need to learn how nature works and how to live in accordance with that, rather than imposing our own artificial and inefficient system.

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Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:06 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


dreamtrove wrote "
Gino,

I agree with you that GMO is being misused, but I don't favor a ban. After all, everything we eat just about is a GMO food. In the US, many of our foods are GMO foods created by ancient mezoamerican civilizations.

As per your Islamic law suggestion, I think it's overall sound: Don't have more children than you can support. My only concern would be, as with so many things: Who do you give the power to enforce such a policy. "

I would suggest 1.common sense, but failing that

perhaps our social support systems are adding to the damage by almost encouraging people without means to reproduce... welfare paying out so much per child, etc

A cutoff, assistance for one child only, may be harsh but at least crack moms won't be having kids to pay for their habit




Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 3:04 AM

CITIZEN


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Overall, I think the human race as a biomass is nowhere near critical levels. It's just the manner in which humans use their resources. Consider mice as a decent correlation. The biomass of the world's mice (biomouse?) is currently around 2 to 3 times that of humans, but the situation is worse than that: Mice also have a metabolic rate about 10 times that of humans, so you're looking at more like 20-30 the total food consumption in terms of high value dry weight foods by mice vs. humans.


There's many times more insects than anything else: but they're insects, not people. I don't think the number of mice that the planet can support proves how many humans it can support. The Easter Island Civilisation collapsed because they couldn't support their population, and their population density was no where near our current density in the west.

If we didn't have technologically advanced farming methods, we couldn't support our population now. If we used just traditional farming methods we couldn't support our population. Britain couldn't feed a much smaller population than todays on the agricultural methods of the time in the 1940s, and those have much greater yield than natural food gathering for humans. That is, right now, the planet can't naturally support the Human population, we have to use incredibly advanced intensive agricultural technology to do so. We exceeded our natural maximum biomass more than 2000 years ago.

But that's beside the point. If we're all going to live by western standards, we need a lot less people. America, a country of 300 million, is responsible for 25% of the emissions of a planet of 6 Billion. Imagine if all 6 Billion used energy and industry like American's do. If everyone is too live a life like that we enjoy in the west, there's no option but having much less people on the planet.

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 7:07 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


DT, if you haven’t already figured out that the ideological gap between us is too big to bridge, I’m surprised. We represent two different ends of the spectrum on most subjects. I disagree wholeheartedly with your theories on earth’s carrying capacity.

To say that “I know that a squirrel knows that he is planting more nuts than he plans to dig up, and that this will result in trees” strikes me as a huge leap; I don’t believe for one minute that the squirrel “knows” his actions will result in trees, rather science shows that animals who act on instinct, such as storing up food for the Winter, do so with no other purpose than survival. Nature is balanced in such a way that their over-storage results in refurbishing the ecosystem, but that in no way means the squirrel realizes this and acts accordingly.

I find your estimate that “My house sits on 2 acres of land, which means that local to here, my yard supports over 10,000 mice” highly questionable, but that’s neither here nor there. I agree with Citizen in the concept that
Quote:

There's many times more insects than anything else: but they're insects, not people. I don't think the number of mice that the planet can support proves how many humans it can support.
In fact, for once I tend to agree with almost everything Citizen wrote on the matter.

As to your concepts of carrying capacity, I think they are utopian and have no possibility of happening. You keep saying “should”, but what mankind “should” do hasn’t necessarily got any relationship to what he WILL do. I think a far more realistic view is that which I found below, and the conclusion the more accurate one:
Quote:

The human population is now so large and growing so rapidly that even popular magazines are referring to the possibility of a "demographic winter" (Time 1991). The current population of 5.5 billion, growing at an annual rate of 1.7%, will add approximately 93 million people this year, equivalent to more than the population of Mexico (unless otherwise noted, demographic statistics are from, or projected from, PRB 1991).

The slow progress in reducing fertility in recent years is reflected in the repeated upward revisions of United Nations projections (UNFPA 1991). The current estimate for the 2025 population is 8.5 billion, with growth eventually leveling off at approximately 11.6 billion around 2150. These projections are based on optimistic assumptions of continued declines in population growth rates.

Despite the tremendous uncertainty inherent in any population projections, it is clear that in the next century Earth will be faced with having to support at least twice its current human population. Whether the life support systems of the planet can sustain the impact of so many people is not at all certain.

Ecologists define carrying capacity as the maximal population size of a given species that an area can support without reducing its ability to support the same species in the future. Specifically, it is "a measure of the amount of renewable resources in the environment in units of the number of organisms these resources can support" (Roughgarden 1979, p. 305) and is specified as K in the biological literature.

Carrying capacity is a function of characteristics of both the area and the organism. A larger or richer area will, ceteris paribus, have a higher carrying capacity. Similarly, a given area will be able to support a larger population of a species with relatively low energetic requirements (e.g., lizards) than one at the same trophic level with high energetic requirements (e.g., birds of the same individual body mass as the lizards). The carrying capacity of an area with constant size and richness would be expected to change only as fast as organisms evolve different resource requirements. Though the concept is clear, carrying capacity is usually difficult to estimate.

For human beings, the matter is complicated by two factors: substantial individual differences in types and quantities of resources consumed and rapid cultural (including technological) evolution of the types and quantities of resources supplying each unit of consumption. Thus, carrying capacity varies markedly with culture and level of economic development.

Carrying capacity today. Given current technologies, levels of consumption, and socioeconomic organization, has ingenuity made today's population sustainable? The answer to this question is clearly no, by a simple standard. The current population of 5.5 billion is being maintained only through the exhaustion and dispersion of a one-time inheritance of natural capital (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1990), including topsoil, groundwater, and biodiversity. The rapid depletion of these essential resources, coupled with a worldwide degradation of land (Jacobs 1991, Myers 1984, Postel 1989) and atmospheric quality (Jones and Wigley 1989, Schneider 1990), indicate that the human enterprise has not only exceeded its current social carrying capacity, but it is actually reducing future potential biophysical carrying capacities by depleting essential nautral capital stocks.

Carrying capacity for saints. Two general assertions could support a claim that today's overshoot of social carrying capacity is temporary. The first is that people will alter their lifestyles (lower consumption, A in the I = PAT equation) and thereby reduce their impact. Although we strongly encourage such changes in lifestyle, we believe the development of policies to bring the population to (or below) social carrying capacity requires defining human beings as the animals now in existence. Planning a world for highly cooperative, antimaterialistic, ecologically sensitive vegetarians would be of little value in correcting today's situation. In short, it seems prudent to evaluate the problem of sustainability for selfish, myopic people who are poorly organized politically, socially, and economically. http://dieoff.org/page112.htm







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Sunday, December 20, 2009 11:57 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Gino ?

Problem with that is both that it is heavily overhyped, and that the very same folk who want those crackdowns and cutoffs are the same shitheels blocking anything like decent education or access to birth control - so once again you have the nimrods who are bitchin about the problem being the greater part of it.

They make sure these uneducated young people know almost nothing, and what they do know is mostly lies formented by the scare-em-straight abstinence crowd, combined with a concerted and determined effort to block any access to birth control, and then they have the fucking nerve to whine when those people they backed into a corner like that take either of the options they have left.

Seriously, those gauntlets of assholes blocking planned parenthood clinics also discourage and run off people looking for options to not get pregnant, and they know it, and it's deliberate, but no one wants to talk about that, now do they ?

Just like the whole abortion issue, most folk are coming at it from the wrong end, trying to solve it from the bottom up and hacking at the branches instead of the root of the problem.

As for sustainability, I don't argue the bloody details cause it's pointless minutae and there's so much distortion and bullshit on both sides the truth of it isn't gonna get found in there, I just nail it down to TWO simple concepts which anyone with half a brain can get on board with.

Waste not, want not.
Don't crap where you live.

That's what it really comes down to, and you can express that to someone, connect with em about it, a helluva lot easier than a long lecture about stuff so far outta their competence that they just start tuning you out.

Again, if you're gonna argue with people, you need to understand people - which is a flaw in the arguments of scientists who seem unaware they're talking to people without the background to even place their concepts in reality.

-F

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 12:05 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Frem: Absofuckinglootely! Every word. Which is why I highlighted "Planning a world for highly cooperative, antimaterialistic, ecologically sensitive vegetarians would be of little value in correcting today's situation. In short, it seems prudent to evaluate the problem of sustainability for selfish, myopic people who are poorly organized politically, socially, and economically".

And I agree on the other points too...I've always said any pro-choice screamer has nothing to say to me unless they've adopted a kid who needs a home. Of course they don't, they think helping an unwed mother is great, but after the kid is BORN, "right-to-life" doesn't come into it much to them.

I'll refrain from saying more about "pro-lifers" and their attitudes, and just let what Frem said stand for me...




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Sunday, December 20, 2009 12:31 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


An interesting article, Niki. It doesn't seem likely that most people would choose to lower their standard of living voluntarily. There's not a lot in history to support such action and Copenhagen confirms

Probably the most likely course for the next few decades is increased violent conflict over resources, which frankly what Iraq and Afghanistan are really being fought over. The 'Haves' will continue to try and monopolise increasingly precious resources nad the'Have Nots' will use increasingly vicious and catastrophic means to topple them.

Add a few pandemics and the affects of climate change and I think you'll see a dramatic reduction in population eventually. It just wont be pretty.

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 12:39 PM

CITIZEN


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Again, if you're gonna argue with people, you need to understand people - which is a flaw in the arguments of scientists who seem unaware they're talking to people without the background to even place their concepts in reality.


That's the thing. Scientists are making scientific arguments in science, can't blame them that fuckwits are trying to jump into science because it's saying shit they don't want to hear.

Ergo, it's not a flaw in the scientists arguments, its a flaw in the rest of us for letting fuckwits think they have a valuable contribution to proceedings, rather than saying, you know: hey, Limbaugh you're a dick, shut the fuck up.

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 1:35 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Magons, I'm afraid you're right and have been for a long time; that's what many are predicting; and sadly, it seems the obvious answer, given humans.

And sadly, I agree with you too, Citizen.




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Sunday, December 20, 2009 1:47 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Gino ?

Problem with that is both that it is heavily overhyped, and that the very same folk who want those crackdowns and cutoffs are the same shitheels blocking anything like decent education or access to birth control - so once again you have the nimrods who are bitchin about the problem being the greater part of it.

They make sure these uneducated young people know almost nothing, and what they do know is mostly lies formented by the scare-em-straight abstinence crowd, combined with a concerted and determined effort to block any access to birth control, and then they have the fucking nerve to whine when those people they backed into a corner like that take either of the options they have left.

Seriously, those gauntlets of assholes blocking planned parenthood clinics also discourage and run off people looking for options to not get pregnant, and they know it, and it's deliberate, but no one wants to talk about that, now do they ?

Just like the whole abortion issue, most folk are coming at it from the wrong end, trying to solve it from the bottom up and hacking at the branches instead of the root of the problem.

As for sustainability, I don't argue the bloody details cause it's pointless minutae and there's so much distortion and bullshit on both sides the truth of it isn't gonna get found in there, I just nail it down to TWO simple concepts which anyone with half a brain can get on board with.

Waste not, want not.
Don't crap where you live.

That's what it really comes down to, and you can express that to someone, connect with em about it, a helluva lot easier than a long lecture about stuff so far outta their competence that they just start tuning you out.

Again, if you're gonna argue with people, you need to understand people - which is a flaw in the arguments of scientists who seem unaware they're talking to people without the background to even place their concepts in reality.

-F



I see what your saying Frem, from your viewpoint it makes nothing but sense...

It Canada many of those factors change quite a bit, I don't see any real restrictions to birth control methods, sex education information, or the like... Hell in High School if you needed Condoms I remember you didn't buy them, you went to the guidance office and helped yourself out of a box in the lobby.

I have read that is quite different down south, I guess I take some of what we have for granted a little...

The abortion issue up here hasn't been as confrontational for the most part as your in the US has been, government funded procedures are done in most places, some facilities do not do them... but as I understand it, there is the caveat that a counseling session is provided and options explained, etc ( without pressure either way is the ideal, but there have been case where that has been questioned )



Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 1:59 PM

DREAMTROVE


Gino,

I agree about not subsidizing population growth.

There's just too much here that doesn't come from planet earth, I'm just going to take a couple potshots:

MAGONSDAUGHTER, sorry, I think you have a misapprehension about the american standard of living. Either that or I do, but I've seen an awful lot of America.



Now, as to mice and men: A mouse has the mass of about 1-2 thousandths of a human, and about ten times the metabolic rate. There the difference end. A man is a mouse the world over. Check evolution. Vole>Prosimian>Monkey>Ape>Man. Not a lot of difference. Close to none actually.

GMO would bring us foods many times the size of current ones, correcting the mouse/human imbalance in carrying capacity. But much more than that, we've already figured out how to hijack insect metabolism which is much more efficient.

Niki,

How many squirrels do you see every day? I've watched squirrels plant trees all my life, and I know that they're clever little buggers. I know they know exactly what they're doing. There's probably not a huge gap between man and squirrel in intelligence. Squirrels and mice both can figure out fairly complex machinery. I'm sure they can figure out where trees come from. It's not rocket science.

But okay, you want proof? Here's just a small inkling of it: If a squirrel didn't know jack about trees, then why would it wander all over the yard and plant trees 10 to 20 feet apart? Why wouldn't he just bury them all in the same place? Also, why bury them at a seed-depth. Why not just stockpile them in a warren. Oh, I'm sure he does the latter. Those are the ones he intends to eat. The squirrel who digs up nuts is the one who miscalculated, and ran out of food. But that's his backup plan.

Actually, Squirrel Nutkin is rather better at it than I am, an I've been doing it for a while. He seems to have a knack for picking ideal locations to grow a tree in. Just like he knows exactly how to upset the bird feeder, just like he knows that he can get anywhere in town froma telephone pole without becoming a splat in the road.

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 2:51 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
It Canada many of those factors change quite a bit, I don't see any real restrictions to birth control methods, sex education information, or the like... Hell in High School if you needed Condoms I remember you didn't buy them, you went to the guidance office and helped yourself out of a box in the lobby.


Hooray for Canada!

Back in my days you *couldn't* get them, period - no one would sell em to you, and much of the class didn't even know what one was...

Of course, while nowhere near as bad as rumor had it, I wasn't celibate in high school, hell no, and I used em despite the fact that I had to *steal* the damned things, and further my education in contrast to the bullshit and lies by means both nefarious and illegal since the only thing you could laughably call sex ed in that school was a forty minute video essentially saying "this is sex, it's bad, don't do it."

Mind you, this was also the entirety of my nieces education on the matter as well since the dimwits sent her to that same school, resulting in me having to have "the talk" with her even though I hadda drive a couple hundred miles to go do so.

I suppose in retrospect however, my actions did promote a little bit of good sense, since it was "uncool" back then to suit up before takin the plunge, and my inclination to do so earned me the derogatory monniker of "Lord Latex" from a couple of them jerks - which came back to haunt them in a major fashion when they learned the hard way that pregnancy isn't the ONLY thing condoms prevent.

*hums the trojan man theme*

-F

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 4:12 PM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Bump for legit post

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 7:03 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:

MAGONSDAUGHTER, sorry, I think you have a misapprehension about the american standard of living. Either that or I do, but I've seen an awful lot of America.




As a nation, America consumes a whopping chunk of the earth's resources. Didn't say it was evenly consumed per capita.

Every thing is relative. Given that great chunks of the worlds population don't have access to the basics of clean water, enough food and housing, even a poor american would probably appear to be living like a king to someone in Somali.

Quote:

In the United States:

Reducing consumption without reducing use is a costly delusion. If undeveloped countries consumed at the same rate as the US, four complete planets the size of the Earth would be required. People who think that they have a right to such a life are quite mistaken.

*

Americans constitute 5% of the world's population but consume 24% of the world's energy.
*

On average, one American consumes as much energy as
o

2 Japanese
o

6 Mexicans
o

13 Chinese
o

31 Indians
o

128 Bangladeshis
o

307 Tanzanians
o

370 Ethiopians
*

The population is projected to increase by nearly 130 million people - the equivalent of adding another four states the size of California - by the year 2050.
*

Forty percent of births are unintended.
*

Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day - that's roughly 200 billion more than needed - enough to feed 80 million people.
*

Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily.
*

The average American generates 52 tons of garbage by age 75.
*

The average individual daily consumption of water is 159 gallons, while more than half the world's population lives on 25 gallons.
*

Fifty percent of the wetlands, 90% of the northwestern old-growth forests, and 99% of the tall-grass prairie have been destroyed in the last 200 years.
*

Eighty percent of the corn grown and 95% of the oats are fed to livestock.
*

Fifty-six percent of available farmland is used for beef production.
*

Every day an estimated nine square miles of rural land are lost to development.
*

There are more shopping malls than high schools.


Other Facts:

*

250 million people have died of hunger-related causes in the past quarter-century — roughly 10 million each year.
*

700 to 800 million people, perhaps even as many as a billion, don't get enough food to support normal daily activities
*

Africa now produces 27% less food per capita than in 1964.
*

1.7 billion people lack access to clean drinking water, and by the year 2000, the number of urban dwellers without access to safe water and sanitation services is expected to grow by 80%.
*

0.1% of pesticides applied to crops reaches the pest, the rest poisons the ecosystem.
*

Each year 25 million people are poisoned by pesticides in less developed countries, and over 20,000 die.
*

One-third of the world's fish catch and more than one-third of the world's total grain output is fed to livestock.
*

It takes an average of 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat in modern Western farming systems. It takes 5,214 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef.
*

Each person in the industrialized world uses as much commercial energy as 10 people in the developing world.

source: Paul Ehrlich and the Population Bomb / PBS [the PBS website is defunct but the book by the same name is available]


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Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:51 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


DT, some of your theories just amaze me.
Quote:

I know they know exactly what they're doing. There's probably not a huge gap between man and squirrel in intelligence. Squirrels and mice both can figure out fairly complex machinery. I'm sure they can figure out where trees come from. It's not rocket science.

But okay, you want proof? Here's just a small inkling of it: If a squirrel didn't know jack about trees, then why would it wander all over the yard and plant trees 10 to 20 feet apart? Why wouldn't he just bury them all in the same place? Also, why bury them at a seed-depth. Why not just stockpile them in a warren. Oh, I'm sure he does the latter. Those are the ones he intends to eat. The squirrel who digs up nuts is the one who miscalculated, and ran out of food. But that's his backup plan.

I feed squirrels in our back yard; we have approximately 5 reds and 2 greys that come around regularly. But no, I don't see their storage techniques, around here we have no snow and temps are mild, they don't have to bury food, and we have dogs so they don't come down in the back yard,. Plus I feed them.

Squirrels bury nuts in different places, so that if one cache is gone, there are others. That's a proven, accepted fact. Some do stockpile them:
Quote:

Red squirrels store conifer cones in middens, or piles, instead of burying them like their larger cousins do. The middens made by red squirrels can be up to 30 feet across and 1.5 feet deep!
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/species_a_to_z/speciesguide_default/re
dsquirrel/tabid/6915/Default.aspx


Actually, around here burying nuts is a negative trait for them, and that's when they rely on my feeders most:
Quote:

In temperate regions early spring is the hardest time of year for squirrels, since buried nuts begin to sprout and are no longer available for the squirrel to eat, and new food sources have not become available yet. During these times squirrels rely heavily on the buds of trees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel

What you may have observed may also be explained another way:
Quote:

To protect their winter food stocks from potential thieves, they put on an elaborate show of burying non-existent nuts and seeds, a study has shown.

Scientists say the fake burials are designed to confuse any rival squirrels, birds or humans who might be watching.

The incidence of fake burials goes up when they think their food is under threat. Dr Steele recruited a group of undergraduates to follow the squirrels and find out where they were burying food. The number of bogus interments shot up as soon as the human volunteers began to raid the food stocks - suggesting that the creatures were becoming even more deceptive as a reaction to the raids.

Experts are divided on whether the latest research means they are capable of reason or whether they simply get into routines which work for them.

Dr Lisa Leaver at the University of Exeter said: "They may just have learned through trial and error that certain behaviours protect their food from theft."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-508696/Cunning-squirrels-make-
bogus-burials-nuts-seeds-fool-onlookers.html


I'm sorry, but the concept that squirrels' memories, tho' razor sharp, are long enough and their intelligence, while admittedly quite high for animals, is high enough that they make the connection between the burying of their nuts and the growth of trees much later, and do so for that PURPOSE, is just, well, let's just say I disagree. Nowhere can I find any scientific backing to this concept. Yes, squirrels are bright little buggers, and are ruthlessly cunning. For ANIMALS.

As to getting around town by telephone wires, of course, it's a natural progression. Squirrels use trees as their highway; little difference between that and phone poles. And most smart gathering animals cotton to how to get food out of something, one way or another.

But "not rocket science"? "Not a huge gap between man and squirrel in intelligence"?, well, I won't even go there. If you have any scientific links on the matter, or that they correlate burying nuts to growing trees, I'd be most interested in seeing them. Nature works, that doesn't mean the creatures' understand what they're doing. Your theory is "nuts", as far as I'm concerned.




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Sunday, December 20, 2009 9:00 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Ahhh, thank you Magons. Like I said, I folkdanced with Ehrlich's daughter and we talked about that stuff at length when I was younger. I got an earful, then an eyefull and brainfull when I read his book. The book is excellent, IMHO, and the data you cited goes to most of the major points. That's how things ARE, not how they should be, and convincing people to make them how they "should" be just isn't going to happen, as I see it. Wars would (will) be fought over food, famines and droughts would/will wipe out huge populations, and many more things would/will happen, but mankind won't get smart enough to even ATTEMPT sustainability before all that, if ever.

And yes, compared to the average rural Afghan, we DO live like kings, even the homeless and poorest among us. Our country provides safety nets, and starvation is tougher here. The way we use resources is enough to turn a reasonabe person's stomach, looked at objectively. We just can't seem to grasp it...or don't want to, I guess.




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Sunday, December 20, 2009 9:09 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


I think rather than look at squirrel behaviour you could look at other primate behaviour (unless of course you are a creationist). I can't quote any research, but I am sure there has been results which indicate that after a certain critical mass of primates builds up in an area, they all go to war. How many depends on food and water availability, as well as brain size of the species (the larger the brain the larger the community).


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Sunday, December 20, 2009 9:15 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Yup. Actually, they go to war or move on and create more groups/communities, which is what we've always done as a species. Most species are held on check by food and water availability, and/or predators; we're the contradiction. Unless we move out into space, however, there's no place left TO move on to, and we become our own predators.

I saw an experiment once with mice, where they were given a sustainable amount of food, water, space, etc. Of course they overpopulated, and the result wasn't pretty. Very not pretty.

As to squirrel behavior, my only argument was with DT's assumption of there not being much difference in intelligence between us and them, and that they deliberately plant nuts in order to grow trees. Beyond that, it really has nothing to do with the topic at hand.




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Sunday, December 20, 2009 9:22 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


yeah, sorry I was just replying generally. I agree with your responses about the squirrel behaviour. Didn't really get DT's argument.

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Sunday, December 20, 2009 11:07 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Might I suggest a book or two

http://www.ditext.com/ardrey/imperative/imperative.html

http://www.amazon.com/African-Genesis-Personal-Investigation-Origins/d
p/0689100132



Very interesting stuff, the theory's of genetic memory is particularly fascinating.





Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Monday, December 21, 2009 6:37 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Haven't read them yet, but did get through the chapter on Nation. And your mention of genetic memory caught me...isn't it something? It's behind an awful lot of the problems between men and women, nation and nation, and accounts for sooo many other things we don't "decide" consciously...very frustrating. It's like we can't seem to "evolve" past it...and until/unless we do, I think we're pretty doomed as a species...sadly...




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Monday, December 21, 2009 8:55 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Haven't read them yet, but did get through the chapter on Nation. And your mention of genetic memory caught me...isn't it something? It's behind an awful lot of the problems between men and women, nation and nation, and accounts for sooo many other things we don't "decide" consciously...very frustrating. It's like we can't seem to "evolve" past it...and until/unless we do, I think we're pretty doomed as a species...sadly...







I forget whether it is one of these books of another I read, but somewhere along the line I read somebodys theory of brain evolution, the book started with the mapping by function work ( that was still really new when this was written ) and theorized that the brain was really like a big snowball, over thousands of years layers became active and grew into their present functions... in there both genetic and racial memory existed ( ever knew things you never learned )

I think you can evolve past your genetic heritage, I think it takes a few generations to do, but I think it does happen...

Likely opening a can of worms, but look at the differences between black folk and where they come from... over the years I worked with people from Africa, the Caribbean, and the US... and the differences between them are huge... even in the generation that was born and raised in Canada. When you think going back far enough they came from the same lands, maybe cultural evolution, racial and genetic memory and brain evolution has real effects from generation to generation.



Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Monday, December 21, 2009 9:04 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Some things it seems, however, are too deeply wired into us that escaping them may not be possible. Sadly.




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Monday, December 21, 2009 10:53 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Some things it seems, however, are too deeply wired into us that escaping them may not be possible. Sadly.






Somethings sure

Fight / Flee

or Gathering and nesting

but it is instinct... how you act on those instincts is still moderated by the reasoning part of the brain, so despite compulsions to act or react a certain way experience can allow us to alter or even reverse that instinct.

Fire for example, I think we all know at a base level it is dangerous, but we still live and work with it, the degree of confidence is proportional to the depth of experience...




Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists


Lets party like its 1939

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Monday, December 21, 2009 11:06 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Let me put it another way: Some things we can deal with consciously, others are subconscious, and some of those are so hard wired into us, we have yet to overcome them. Territoriality, fear of the "other", male-female communication, etc.

Many, if not most, people go about their daily lives not even aware of the subconscious ones, and/or not caring to resist them.

Howzat? ;o)




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Monday, December 21, 2009 2:16 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
Some things it seems, however, are too deeply wired into us that escaping them may not be possible. Sadly.


Folks want you to believe that, though.

I give that depending on which folk one is talking about (Congress for example) there's some humans I'd say weren't much brighter than a squirrel, sure...

But as far as how much is "wired" and not, that's a longish debate that's only recently come to prominence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture

Thing is, I have always looked askance at folk who keep tellin me humans are wicked, nasty sociopaths who need to be controlled "for their own good" along with a heap of social darwinist crap - cause those offering to do said controlling are always the ones espousing those beliefs - AND watching evidence that humans are NOT like that, not born like that, but warped and twisted INTO that by our social and education systems, from point blank range, has convinced me it's utterly not true.

Human instinct is something far different than what it's made out to be, Rosseau had it, and Kropotkin nailed it out of the park.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RousseauWasRight

And, must read, this one.
Kropotkin's Mutual Aid
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents
.html


Recent experiments, one of which was posted here, have shown both that earlier experiments on behavior were set-up and unscientific, and experiments on people "socialised" by our social and education models invariably load in the direction of Milgram or Stanford effects, but when done prior to, or in the absence of such negative socialisation, show that humans are by nature cooperative and helpful.

Hell, place something just out of reach and ask a bystander to hand it to you - PURE REFLEX sends them to do it, even if they check themselves and refuse, you can SEE what the natural inclination is.

So, there's stuff that's wired, and then there's stuff that's taught - but when we teach compliance through fear, backstabbing, treachery and conformity to repulsive moral standards straight from the cradle to adulthood, what the hell can one really expect ?

-Frem
http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php

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Monday, December 21, 2009 3:04 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Quote:

I have always looked askance at folk who keep tellin me humans are wicked, nasty sociopaths who need to be controlled "for their own good" along with a heap of social darwinist crap
Oh, heavens, me too. But read "Men Are From Mars" and tell me some thing aren't hard-wired subconscious genetic remnants from caveman days...




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Tuesday, December 22, 2009 3:28 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


I applaud Canada for being one of the few countries with a sensible population density


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:


"The 'inconvenient truth' overhanging the U.N.'s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world"

It then goes on to suggest "A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy"






While I agree with the first statement 100%
agree well ...sort of ... if we had Cold-Fusion and other scifi devices perhaps we would not put pressure on the planet

I don't agree the Chinese solution is the way,
However the problem with the States and other countries is you have too many politically correct groups, too many religious groups

Nobody wants to see birth control pills in the schools, you start talking about abortion or contraception or limiting the size of families and some people start calling you the next
Adolf Hitler

Preventing people having babies is not a politically correct thing to talk about










but its time we did talk about it and do something about it

maybe its a greed and resource and war thing then add more people

Over-Population is this Planet's Number 1 Problem

if people are not enlightened and fall into status of greed, fighting and invasions, more of the Populations adds more of the problems

an 'Enlightened' population would not be 'Overpopulated'

if you move forward with science there can be better ways to make food, industry, farm, resource but it takes a skilled educated culture, Malthusianism expect the worse of humanity, it is the theory that population growth is potentially exponential, according to the Malthusian growth model, nasty greed energy people fight and eat each other.

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009 6:33 PM

DREAMTROVE


Magonsdaughter,

America is a third world country. Somalia is the poorest nation on earth. It's not a fair comparison, esp. given the collapse of the Somali currency. This isn't Korea. I live reasonably well, because I have my own business and still earn less than the poverty level, which is essential, remaining poor is the only way to live in the US, and of course, I'm an uneducated ignoramus and so I carry no debt. I do not envy my fellow Americans, who are largely in a condition I consider little better than slavery. Still, I'm in critical need of healthcare, which I cannot get, in spite of having health insurance.

I think your perception of America is way off base. Any american would be far better off living in Eastern Europe, even the former Yugoslavia, or probably Mexico or Cuba. I'd say that most of what we used to call "The third world" is better off than the US currently. Most Americans live in quarters that are smaller than a commercial rest room, and less clean. Also, they carry more debt that they will save in their lifetimes.

Far from land of plenty, or home of the free, it is a slave state. For most. I feel relatively lucky. Aside from the whole dying part.


Nik,

Not guessing on squirrels. So you've seen squirrels, but they don't touch the ground. Please feel free to accept facts and accepted theories of intellectuals, but don't expect me to give them any more credence than your average edict from any other religious zealot. I have watched squirrels for years. They don't bury several "caches" they bury individual nuts, at the proper depth for planting, and a great number turn into trees and bear fruit within a couple of years, well within their own lifetimes. Given that they're roughly as intelligent as humans, the idea that this, so essential to their survival, is a concept that eludes them is preposterous.

I'm aware they cache multiple stocks in deep burrows, or warrens, and have a great deal of deception, they're clever little buggers. They also cooperate of course, it's not all competition. But they also plant trees. This is like the issue over whether parrots know what they're saying when they talk: Some people just refuse to believe what is right in front of their eyes, even if it persists life long.

Almost nothing I've read in any academic source has actually been accurate. You can prove anything you want, theoretically. By comparison, the ranting of lunatics on the internet, such as Pirate News, (no offense man,) is a bastion of knowledge. They're wrong about 90% of the time, which overall is a pretty good record compared to any official source.

Animals are far smarter than we think they are. All animal intelligence tests show that there are a fair number of animals that are substantially smarter than humans.

Academia hates this idea. This is because academics are at heart all religious human supremacists. This is why almost every college science class begins with: The difference between human and animals is... and then some philosophical BS.

Someone just posted something to the effect that the carrying capacity of the Earth vis a vis mice had nothing to do with that of humans. There's no difference between a mouse and a human other than metabolic rate, size, and the whole furry belly long tail thing. But biochemically, no. They have many more jumping genes than humans, but that won't effect their dietary staples. A man is a mouse, just a large one with a slow metabolism.

A man and a mouse are very similar to a squirrel. The first humanoid was prosimian, who was a very squirrel-like creature.

Oh, and the natural world doesn't work entirely by "instinct" this is a myth thought up by human supremacists. Most species have brains, and use them. Some have fairly advanced civilizations. Some far more advanced than ours.

If you go by brain to bodyweight ratio, the most brainy animal is a species of mouse, and is 3:1 ahead of the second highest competitor, which is another species of mouse.

Not only have I watched squirrels plant trees for many decades, I have watched them carefully. They care little who is watching them, but they care a great deal where the tree goes in relation to other trees, and whether there is water, or rocks, in the place they select. If the area is rocky or dry, they'll relocate, and try again. If it were a cache they were looking for, rocky and dry would be ideal. But then, if they did that, there wouldn't be so many fruit and nut trees in my yard. Sure, I planted probably 1/3 of the fruit and nut trees in my yard. You know who planted the rest.



Magonsdaughter:

you are correct, to a fair extent, primates go to war, but sometimes, if they can, they migrate on. Squirrels don't go to war. Maybe this is because they plan ahead ;)

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:18 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Magonsdaughter,

America is a third world country. Somalia is the poorest nation on earth. It's not a fair comparison, esp. given the collapse of the Somali currency. This isn't Korea. I live reasonably well, because I have my own business and still earn less than the poverty level, which is essential, remaining poor is the only way to live in the US, and of course, I'm an uneducated ignoramus and so I carry no debt. I do not envy my fellow Americans, who are largely in a condition I consider little better than slavery. Still, I'm in critical need of healthcare, which I cannot get, in spite of having health insurance.




I'm using America as an example because per capita you consume the most in the world...again not disputing that there is inequities in your society, but the facts support your consumption as a nation. But if it puts you on the defensive, I could also use any first world country in argument as well. Most people in the world would give their right arm (or in many cases their right kidney) to live in a country like America or Australia or any country in Western Europe. They sure as hell aren't risking life and limb because they love baseball. For many to live in poverty in these countries is to live pretty well. It is fair to compare first and third world countries, because that is what my whole argument which you apparently missed is based on. If every nation consumed per capita what we consume, then we'd whittle through our resources in no time.

Someone born elsewhere once said to me that I didn't realise that being born in a country like Australia (or America or Britian et al) you've pretty much won the lottery in the eyes of most of the world population.

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Wednesday, December 23, 2009 7:39 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


DT
Quote:

remaining poor is the only way to live in the US….who are largely in a condition I consider little better than slavery….who are largely in a condition I consider little better than slavery….it is a slave state….Most Americans live in quarters that are smaller than a commercial rest room, and less clean….Given that they're roughly as intelligent as humans, the idea that this, so essential to their survival, is a concept that eludes them is preposterous….This is because academics are at heart all religious human supremacists….There's no difference between a mouse and a human other than metabolic rate, size, and the whole furry belly long tail thing. But biochemically, no….
Statements such as these are why we are diametrically opposed on almost all issues. You seem to have a propensity for believing what you believe, despite any evidence to the contrary, and dismissing science as easily as any hard-core evangelical. There’s no debating you because any scientific source quoted is dismissed out of hand.

Quote:

All animal intelligence tests show that there are a fair number of animals that are substantially smarter than humans.
Proof, please. Everything I’ve seen is the opposite. Yes, some animals have a lot of intelligence, WITHIN THEIR REALM, but to say there’s no difference is patently absurd, in my opinion. Dolphins are extremely intelligent, as are other species, but to say they are “substantially smarter” is beyond the bounds of reality, to me.

Quote:

Please feel free to accept facts and accepted theories of intellectuals, but don't expect me to give them any more credence than your average edict from any other religious zealot….
That just goes to prove my point; I’ve didn’t talk about “intellectuals”, but “scientists’. To dismiss all scientists, along with the scientific method, makes debate impossible and is so far out in left field that it gives you, to me and possibly others, no credence on most issues. Your single biggest conspiracy theory seems to be that religion rules every aspect of everything and that you know more than any other source.

I think Magon has it FAR more rationally:
Quote:

Most people in the world would give their right arm (or in many cases their right kidney) to live in a country like America or Australia or any country in Western Europe. They sure as hell aren't risking life and limb because they love baseball… For many to live in poverty in these countries is to live pretty well....Someone born elsewhere once said to me that I didn't realise that being born in a country like Australia (or America or Britian et al) you've pretty much won the lottery in the eyes of most of the world population.
That is the fact, pure and simple.




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Wednesday, December 23, 2009 6:36 PM

DREAMTROVE


Niki

I appreciate your input, but not your insults. It's not my job to educate you. You have the internet, and I don't have time. I am always seeking the truth, but in areas where I have doubt. I don't think anything I posted is in any serious doubt.

Dolphins are about as intelligent as humans, most cetaceans and cephalopods are smarter. Rodents too, depending on your measuring stick.

What is beyond the bounds of reality to you is well recorded scientific fact to me. To debate it would be as useless as to debate against an argument that the Earth is flat. I suspect your background here is academic, and I mean no slight to say that it is therefore academic. What you have been told, which is what academia is, a collection of what you've been told, in lectures and in books, is itself a form of religious creationism which pretends to be science. If you actually study science in a scientific manner, you'll find reality bears no resemblance to its academic counterpart.

If you count hive minds, I'd plant ants at the top, but as single individuals, the octopus and squid vie for top spot. Whales are probably smarter than humans, and mice certainly win the brain to bodyweight ratio, the learning curve tests, and the speed of thought. If a mice lived as long us, we probably wouldn't rule the world.

As for the human political system, it's not particularly more advanced than that of termites. Given that the human brain is a million times the size of that of a termite doesn't say much for our political system.

My supposition that intellectualism is a religion and not a science is based on experience. It clings to its dogma like nothing else. It lives in abject terror that it might have to let its accepted premises stand the test of actual trial and error.

Oh, and of course, you seem to be under the illusion that I'm a christian or something.

Quote:


I think Magon has it FAR more rationally:

Quote:
Most people in the world would give their right arm (or in many cases their right kidney) to live in a country like America or Australia or any country in Western Europe.



well, perhaps they would, but that doesn't make them right.

But to put America, Australia and Western Europe into one sentence as equals is beyond ignorance.

As I said before, America isn't Korea or Japan. We're not the land of plenty. Maybe we were once. Now we're a destitute nation of subsistence slavery. If you don't believe me, visit the US sometime. Or just read the statitstics.

The average american works without benefits for wages that fail to cover the interest on their debt. They live in a small apt or trailer, and they own nothing. Debts outweigh assets, and they achieve economic freedom in poverty at the time of retirement. Statistically, two years later, they are dead. That's just raw statistics. Hardly a utopia.

Quote:


...won the lottery in the eyes of most of the world population.

That is the fact, pure and simple.




No, it's far from fact. In fact, it's nothing but pure opinion. It may be a majority opinion. There are a lot of myths about the US, and Magons may hold some of them, maybe you do to.

I was born into a world of nothing. The food we had was what we could buy with the pennies we could work for. We had no heat, and the winter temperatures went to 60 below zero. As you know I attended 4 years of formal education. As I have met many people from many places, I think the "fantasy america" is a naive notion. I don't disagree that many people hold it. I suspect most americans had a pretty similar experience to mine. It was common in parts of europe as well. A lot of countries in europe are substantially poorer than many in subsaharan africa.

A friend of mine who works for the UN and EU on a recent tour of the US said he was appalled by the standards of living of America, and how great the disparity was between that, and the myth of America. I allowed as, yes, it was basically a third world country. He turned to me and said "No, really, it's not. I've spent a lot of time in the third world, and it's not nearly as bad as America."

From my own experiences, I have to concur.

Now, sure, you can bring up Somalia, Afghanistan, ranked currently last and second to last in standard of living in 200 countries, or probably anything in the lower half. But no, collectively, America is not a paradise of the rich. I've spent a lot of time abroad. I've been to about 30 countries, 1/2 of which have a lower per capita GDP, none of which would classify as a "lower standard of living."

I was just shooting down a common myth. I don't doubt that people hold this myth world-wide. American media has been broadcasting this myth for decades

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Thursday, December 24, 2009 8:43 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


While I don't buy DT theory, I do think many animals are smarter than credit given them

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8427000/8427974.stm

Chimps use cleavers and anvils as tools to chop food


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6948446.stm

Cleverest crows opt for two tools
( video is neat )

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8408233.stm

Octopus snatches coconut and runs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7922120.stm

Chimps craft ultimate fishing rod



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Thursday, December 24, 2009 9:16 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


"No, really, it's not. I've spent a lot of time in the third world, and it's not nearly as bad as America."

Add to that Mother Teresa felt that the poor in Calcutta were better off than the poor in the US.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Thursday, December 24, 2009 10:56 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Gino, I, too, believe animals are not given neraly their due when it comes to smarts. I had a rehab raven for 14 years, and her intelligence was fascinating to observe, and ravens are famous for using tools. Octupi, marine mammals and others also portray higher intelligence than that for which they are given credit. But smarter than humans, as DT posits? I don't think so, and there is no scientific data that I know of which proves so.

DT, since you aren't willing to respond to my post replying to your attacks, I would respectfully request if you would refrain from responding to others as well. Would be nice anyway. Pretty much all I have to say to you is I appreciate your input, but not your insults”. As for
Quote:

It's not my job to educate you.
should I dig up ALL the posts in which you have lectured/educated many of us, because that's precisely what you do, yet you do it without any backup except your own beliefs. That's not debating, or discussing, that's lecturing. I will take what you say as opinion until/unless you can back it up
Quote:

I don't think anything I posted is in any serious doubt.
I realize that now. I don’t recall you often bothering to back things up or ever admit you might be wrong; I’ve got it now.
Quote:

What is beyond the bounds of reality to you is well recorded scientific fact to me.
Then please back it up with scientific fact so we can decide for ourselves, rather than expecting us to accept everything you say unquestioningly.
Quote:

I suspect your background here is academic, and I mean no slight to say that it is therefore academic. What you have been told, which is what academia is, a collection of what you've been told, in lectures and in books, is itself a form of religious creationism which pretends to be science.
No, my background is not academic, that’s an assumption. Nor is yours, from what I see, scientific; what you believe appears to be what you have experienced, and those beliefs are unshakeable by any reasonable standards.
Quote:

My supposition that intellectualism is a religion and not a science is based on experience. It clings to its dogma like nothing else. It lives in abject terror that it might have to let its accepted premises stand the test of actual trial and error.
I wholeheartedly disagree and feel your judgment on the matter is prejudiced and incorrect. And no, I never said or believed you are Christian, where you got that from, I have no idea. Rather the opposite; I think you see far too many things in terms of religion, and seem to have an extremely biased opinion on it, finding religion either the cause or a comparison to almost everything you dislike.

While I don’t believe Western Europe was mentioned, and Canada was, you say the assertion that
Quote:

to put America, Australia and Western Europe into one sentence as equals is beyond ignorance.
—that is not an insult in your eyes? I see. Well, Magon, we’re both beyond ignorant, obviously.
Quote:

Now we're a destitute nation of subsistence slavery. If you don't believe me, visit the US sometime.
I LIVE in the U.S., was born and raised here and lived here except for a few years in Afghanistan. It is nothing like as poverty ridden as virtually any place in Asia, where they literally mutilate their children to make them better beggars, and where starvation occurs daily.
Quote:

live in a small apt or trailer, and they own nothing. Debts outweigh assets, and they achieve economic freedom in poverty at the time of retirement. Statistically, two years later, they are dead. That's just raw statistics.
Cites, please! Such a statement encompassing many, much less MOST Americans is truly phenomenal.

Where YOU were born may well be all the things you described, but it is not that way in the majority of America. THAT is fact.
Quote:

The standard of living in the United States is one of the top 20 in the world by the standards economists use as measures of standards of living. Per capita income is high but also less evenly distributed than in most other developed countries; as a result, the United States fares particularly well in measures of average material well being that do not place weight on equality aspects.

On comprehensive measures such as the UN Human Development Index the United States is always in the top twenty, currently ranking 15th. On the Human Poverty Index the United States ranked 16th, one rank below the United Kingdom and one rank above Ireland.[4] On the Economist's quality-of-life index the United States ranked 13th, in between Finland and Canada, scoring 7.6 out of a possible 10. The highest given score of 8.3 was applied to Ireland. This particular index takes into account a variety of socio-economic variables including GDP per capita, life expectancy, political stability, family life, community life, gender equality, and job security.[5]

The homeownership rate is relatively high compared to other post-industrial nations. In 2005, 69% of Americans resided in their own homes, roughly the same percentage as in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Israel and Canada.[6][7][8] Residents of the United States also enjoy a high access to consumer goods. Americans enjoy more radios per capita than any other nation [9] and more televisions and personal computers per capita than any other large nation.[10][11]

The median income is $43,318 per household ($26,000 per household member)[1] with 42% of households having two income earners.[12] Meanwhile, the median income of the average American age 25+ was roughly $32,000[2] ($39,000 if only counting those employed full-time between the ages of 25 to 64) in 2005.[3] According to the CIA the gini index which measures income inequality (the higher the less equal the income distribution) was clocked at 45.0 in 2005,[13] compared to 32.0 in the European Union[14] and 28.3 in Germany.[15] |The US has... a per capita GDP [PPP] of $42,000... The [recent] onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market"... Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households... The rise in GDP in 2004 and 2005 was undergirded by substantial gains in labor productivity... Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living_in_the_United_States

Further to that:

http://www.answers.com/topic/standard-of-living

and
Quote:

In good times and in bad, Americans are better off than most of the world. About 1.4 billion people of Earth's inhabitants live in abject poverty. A more meaningful comparison is with those who live in Europe, Japan, Australia and a handful of other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The U.S. fares well, even when compared with its industrial peers.

The U.S.' per capita gross domestic product (GDP) ranks only 16th in the world, behind Ireland, Sweden, Australia, France and others. But this understates U.S. living standards. Adjusted for cost of living, U.S. is tops among large, industrialized nations. In the whole world, it trails only Qatar, Luxembourg, Norway, Singapore and Brunei.

In housing, the average U.S. family enjoys nearly twice as much living space as the Germans, French or Brits. Even the 20% of Americans with the lowest incomes tend to have larger residences than is typical for households in Western Europe. In food affordability, the U.S. shines: Just 5.7% of household spending is dedicated to food. Most European and Canadian households devote between 9% and 14% to feeding their families. For Japanese consumers, food takes nearly 15% of household spending.

http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/us_living_s
tandards_high_081230.html


You may not bother to read the above or check the links, but that has nothing to do with the fact that it’s true. Certainly our standard of living has been on the decline, I wholeheartedly agree, but it is still far better than many parts of the world. Your prejudice SEEMS to be so strong that you cannot contemplate anything outside your own beliefs. That you “suspect most americans had a pretty similar experience to mine” shows it clearly. Standard of living encompasses many things; I don’t know quite what you are using to judge by, but I maintain that your belief is a fallacy.

Yes, I remember the post you put up about your friend. I also remember the replies. Most of them were disagreements. I don’t know how you can claim to have traveled to 30 countries and still believe what you do. I freely admit the myth of America makes us seem better than we ARE, but there’s one question I’ll ask: Why is it so many from other countries try so hard to get here, and why don’t they return if it’s worse than everywhere else as you claim? Why do they fight so hard to STAY? That alone refutes your theory—and it is a theory, an opinion, not fact. There are good and bad parts of America, but on the whole, it’s better than many, many places, especially Asia.

You would do well to contemplate the possibility that what you experience, and the conclusions you come to, might not always be the final word on any subject. Phrase them as such if you will, it doesn’t mean others will accept them as such, especially if you choose not to back them up with anything tangible.





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Thursday, December 24, 2009 11:46 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Hi Niki

I figured I'd look up some stats. BTW, figures are corrected for 'purchasing power'. (bold for the benefit of others who have argued about relative purchasing power in the past)

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

As of 2005, 80% of the world lives on less than 5.15 / day. Nearly 50% of the world lives on less than 3.14 / day.

If you imagine the equivalent: 80% of the US living on less 5.15 / day, 50% of the US living on less than 3.14 / day - the US is not there.

But if you look further down the page, you'll find that of rich nations, only Singapore has higher income inequality. And that the US has the lowest social mobility.

From other places we know that the US has the lowest lifespan of developed countries, and the highest infant mortality. And while the US claims to have a 99% literacy rate, a case can be made that 25% of the population is functionally illiterate.

If you read the book 'Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America' (Barbara Ehrenreich) you will get a feel for how desperate the lives are of many Americans, how unbelievably hard they work, how little they get, how many untreated health problems they endure, how close they are to homelessness.

In 2008 "32.2 million people — one in every 10 Americans — received food stamps at the latest count." "Approximately twenty percent of the homeless in America have full time or part-time jobs, yet cannot afford their own apartment or house. Forty percent of the homeless living at the New Orleans Mission homeless shelter have full times jobs, yet cannot afford outside housing."

So, while the US is not Somalia or even China, it is not up to the same standards as other developed countries. It is distinctly something less. And for all its supposed advantages, Mother Teresa found it worse than Calcutta.


***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Thursday, December 24, 2009 2:31 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


You'll get no argument from me on any of those points, as things are now. It's the absurdity of saying we are worse than...well, all the things that were said...with which I disagree.

Also, my husband's ex got food stamps while she was going through nursing school. "Officially" she was raising two kids, but we had one of them. I'm DEFINITELY not saying people who get food stamps aren't poor, but there's a certain percentage that are not...she lived in Palo Alto and paid off their house afterward.

What was described as housing and state of living was beyond reality in my opinion, and it's only been a few years we've dipped as low as we have. I have NO argument that we're not what we were, or that we're slipping even further, or that America is any longer the "land of plenty", only that it's not as bad as it was portrayed. If it were, we wouldn't have the illegal alien population we have who are desperate not to get caught and sent home, would we?




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Thursday, December 24, 2009 4:17 PM

DREAMTROVE


Nik

not arguing. Just saying that the popular perception,, which yes, many people have, that the people in the US are atuo-better-off than people in a random other country like Costa Rica or Peru, is just not true.


Gino,

The basic thing that separates humans from animals is written language. it enables us to start with the collective knowledge of our predecessors.

This does not make us more intelligent, objectively, than other species. Humans are smarter than most speccies, but the I was shooting down the assertion that squirrels could have no concept of their own innate natural surroundings through the use of their own brains, which are not particularly dissimilar to our own.

The fact is that academic dogma supports the idea of a sort of 'divine brilliance' to humanity, and after years of studying the subject, I haven't found a lot of evidence to support this notion. That's why I call it a "religious" idea, because the concept is based on belief, not science, and that belief is based on an ideological position of human superiority.

If we went directly to communication, the most adaptive and rapid communicator in the world is the cuttlefish. The most efficient problem solver is the octopus, the fastest thinker is the mouse, the greatest total synaptic capacity is the blue whale, etc. etc. Humans will not win any particular individual contest.


Much would what we do is either simple social organization or ritual, both of which are pretty common animal behaviors. We tend to coat them, like we coat our instincts, mating rituals, etc., in so many layers of obfuscation that we *think* we are using our higher faculties.

But collectively, yes, we fair pretty well. We're not the smartest thing to ever come along, not even the smartest form of human. But we're reasonably smart.

When we actually use our brains.

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Monday, December 28, 2009 4:57 PM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by rue:
If you read the book 'Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America' (Barbara Ehrenreich) you will get a feel for how desperate the lives are of many Americans, how unbelievably hard they work, how little they get, how many untreated health problems they endure, how close they are to homelessness.


Imma back up that reccommendation, it's a damned excellent work on the topic, as is this one.

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
http://www.amazon.com/Off-Books-Underground-Economy-Urban/dp/067403071
0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262055364&sr=1-1


-F

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Tuesday, December 29, 2009 5:51 PM

JAMERON4EVA


Canada? CANADA? When did they get in the news. The last time was when they restricted the boarder laws, and started to keep people who didn't have the money to even get near passes, out.

"Mom, he has her chip. He has her."
John Connor,"Born To Run", TSCC EP 2x22

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Wednesday, July 12, 2023 10:14 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


First the Natives went and the WASP elite Euro Empires and Whites came, some of Mexico arrived and now Canada today looks like a Colony of Pakistan, Arabia, Africa, India and Bangladesh.


A country slightly bigger than Texas is projected to match the US's population by 2050 — and it shows how radically the world is going to change over the next three decades
https://www.businessinsider.com/africa-population-surge-nigeria-us-wor
ker-shortage-world-population-day-2023-7


Drug cartel violence flares in western Mexico after vigilante leader's killing
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/drug-cartel-violence-flares-in-western-me
xico-after-vigilante-leader-s-killing-1.6464954


Why Trudeau got tough on immigration
https://news.yahoo.com/why-trudeau-got-tough-immigration-230045832.htm
l

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Friday, July 14, 2023 6:48 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


Don't Freak its a Sikh

apologize?



Importing political problems from other parts of the world?

You see people on Go-Pro and doing selfie walking Toronto, Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver some places change, look like Bangladesh, Iran, India, Pakistan, Canada has the world's third-largest Sikh population, with nearly 800,000 people or 2.1% of the country's population not always offering the best sometimes they would blow up aircraft

How Hardeep Singh Nijjar's murder in Canada fuelled tensions with India

https://www.aol.com/news/hardeep-singh-nijjars-murder-canada-002134175
.html




,



Nijjar was shot dead by two unidentified gunmen in the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurudwara premises in Surrey, Canada

Supporters of assassinated B.C. Sikh temple leader worry for their own safety
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sikh-temple-nijjar-1.6
883372

A close associate of Sikh community leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar says his friend was warned by Canadian intelligence officials about being targeted for assassination

Sikh Extremists Thrive in Trudeau’s Canada
https://greekcitytimes.com/2023/06/16/sikh-extremists-thrive-in-trudea
us-canada
/

Hardeep Singh Nijjar: Khalistani leader shot dead inside gurdwara in Canada
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/khalistan-leader-sho
t-dead-canada-b2360146.html

A fugitive Sikh separatist wanted by India’s government was shot dead by two unidentified men at a temple in Canada.

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Thursday, July 20, 2023 12:17 PM

JAYNEZTOWN


Kamala Harris’s Revealing Malthusian Malapropism

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/07/kamala-harriss-revealing-malthu
sian-malapropism
/

overpopulation,

Situation in which the number of individuals of a given species exceeds the number that its environment can sustain.



https://www.britannica.com/science/overpopulation



Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale migration, leading to an overabundant species and other animals in the ecosystem competing for food, space, and resources. The animals in an overpopulated area may then be forced to migrate to areas not typically inhabited, or die off without access to necessary resources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
Judgements regarding overpopulation always involve both facts and values. Animals often are judged overpopulated when their numbers cause impacts that people find dangerous, damaging, expensive, or otherwise harmful. Societies may be judged overpopulated when their human numbers cause impacts that degrade ecosystem services, decrease human health and well-being, or crowd other species out of existence.

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