Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jaume on August 1, 2010 at 5:23am

Stop thinking of yourself as a member of the human species. You need to widen the scope. Repeat after me: "I am an eukaryote and our future is bright." You'll feel better.

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Permalink Reply by Ava Wilson on April 3, 2011 at 9:51pm

I love this comment. Hahahaha.

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Permalink Reply by Shine on August 3, 2010 at 3:22pm

I think the problem is that our intellects allowed us to overcome environmental restrictions. Intercourse feeling pleasurable and leading to excessive breeding is not a problem when infant mortality--and death rates in general--remain high. However, once we used our brains to develop adequate medicine to overcome the environmental restriction of a high death rate, we suddenly have too man

It's like you have a large water jug with several holes in the bottom. In order to keep a certain water level in the jug, you must continually pour large amounts of water into the jug. Once you plug the holes, however, that same amount of added water will suddenly cause the jug to overflow. This is what happened with our population; by plugging many of the "holes" of death due to disease, starvation, etc., we have now caused an overflow from the same amount of pleasurable breeding.

A similar situation applies to our preference for foods which harm ourselves and the surrounding environment. We have evolved with an intense taste preference for sweet, salt, and fat. In a pre-agrarian world, these preferences would have greatly increased our chances for survival as they would have ensured that we sought foods which would provide adequate nutrition. Of course, these same preferences become detrimental when applied to a world where we have totally removed any environmental restrictions to nutrition and have, in fact, created an entirely new culinary landscape. And I'm not just talking about the obvious influx of processed fast food in the past century; the same applies to agricultural products, as well. I forget the exact statistics, but the overwhelming majority of the fruits and vegetables which we consume today were nonexistent in the wild. Even broccoli--often lauded as the epitome of natural, whole foods--is the result of centuries (if not millennia) of deliberate domestication of a variety of kale at the hands of human farmers.

I'm not trying to criticize domestication nor insinuate that we should revert to a pre-agrarian existence. However, I do think that it is imperative that we maintain the utmost vigilance at the potential conflicts which arise from our ability to intellectually overcome the environmental restrictions which shaped our evolution. I think that the only solution is to further use our intellects to resolve this disparity. We know the physiological needs and desires that we evolved with; now we just need to figure out how best to accommodate our natural tendencies while inflicting minimal harm upon ourselves and the planet.

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Permalink Reply by Shine on August 3, 2010 at 4:18pm

However, once we used our brains to develop adequate medicine to overcome the environmental restriction of a high death rate, we suddenly have too man

Proofreading fail. That sentence should read "...we suddenly have too many new people being created."

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Permalink Reply by Eoganacht on August 3, 2010 at 6:44pm

I agrre.

Ironic, isn't it: the evolutionary tactics that we picked up to improve our chances are now backfiring and decreasing our chances. Greed back then = more resourses. Greed now = squandering of resourses (and if the resourses are only finite, a bigger screw up.) Lust back then = high birth rate, but high birth rate - infant mortality rate = stable population; therefore, lust now + improved medicines + decreased infant mortality rate = rapidly increasing population that can only be checked by itself and limited resourses. And as we are not going to kill newborn babies anytime soon and our science is extending currnet resourses and exploiting new ones we can only keep running until we fall over.

As you said, we need to devise a way of solving this with science but I doubt that our natural insticts for consumerism will disappear any time soon without another mass extintion.

Did evolution screw us? Yes, then we fucked over again.

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on August 3, 2010 at 7:08pm

As you said, we need to devise a way of solving this with science

We already have all the science we need to solve this problem. What we're lacking is common sense and political commitment. Both among the ruling elites and the masses.

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Permalink Reply by Eoganacht on August 3, 2010 at 8:22pm

For the science part I was thinking of more effective sustainable energy production, i.e. cold fusion or something along the lines of the National Ignition Facility if it is economically viable. There are smaller details that still need to be ironed out.

But with human attitude, we're on the same page.

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on August 3, 2010 at 10:42pm

Assuming it is viable, it's still a long-term goal.

While with current technology, we can build coal plants that release 20+ times less carbon dioxide than the ones the Chinese are churning out weekly at the moment.

With current technology, we can build eco-friendly housings to drastically reduce the need for these plants.

With current technology, we can do a lot of things, but we do little, because of social inertia and political lethargy, or because these solutions "cost more" (while they would actually often cost less if people were used to take externalities into account.)

Sheeesh. We're collectively responsible for what await us, and whatever it is, we'll deserve it. I'm done with the human race.

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Permalink Reply by Eoganacht on August 6, 2010 at 7:18pm

I can see where your coming from. Current tech is better than that 50 years ago and turning out more energy for the same amount of fuel. I agree about the issue with social inertia. The 20* less CO2 coal plants are of huge importance but they are short term (if we do not destory the enviroment before then). Oil and coal will run out, they are finite resourses and we will have to switch to more sustainable resourses. I think that this will only happen in today' political climate when we run out of oil or when oil is too expensive common use. This will no doubt happen sooner rather than later.

Sheeesh. We're collectively responsible for what await us, and whatever it is, we'll deserve it. I'm done with the human race.

We are an animal of unique stupidity and wishful ignorance. I am caught between a wish for a future for humanity and the interest of being there to watch when we finally throw all our shit into the fan.

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on August 6, 2010 at 9:25pm

The point is, there's still enough coal for about 150 years (at the current production rate.) I expect that will be enough for humanity to find a reliable, renewable and cheap replacement.

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Permalink Reply by Eoganacht on August 11, 2010 at 9:22pm

If we can ration current resourses then maybe yes.

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Permalink Reply by matt.clerke on June 23, 2011 at 3:30am

I wonder if that takes into account the dwindling supplies of other fossil fuels....once we run out of oil we will probably lean more heavily on coal, increasing it's rate of use.

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