Too many people?

[Jayjay]

There's no active population control, NONE, that does not involve genocide or horrible oppression and forced abortions.

You are missing the point.

Let me try it another way. Let A = the number of people on this planet. Let B = the number of people that this planet can sustainably hold. Is it or is is not possible to have a discussion on this forum about whether A>B without all the namecalling and lies?

You are missing the point.

B is under a million. It's early stone age technology. The breakpoint is flint--you have to go back to before flint tools because flint is not a renewable resource and at that tech level there's basically no mining. I would be astounded if we could cleanly descend to that point without a massive overshoot due to war.

Thus the only real survival for the human race is to advance technology to the point that a high tech society is sustainable.

Your solution to the falling problem is "push hard to the side and hope you fall into orbit"

Better than the certain splat if you don't. You're going to have to shed an awful lot of weight (people) to get down to the point chutes work.

Well, I was thinking some of column A and some of column B: push out the arc to the side while using the time to shed weight via consensual methodology, so that even if you don't splat, you might still be able to do a rolling landing.

We already have the <5 micron imaging technology in development to do the digitization task (it's tested on live rodents, just need to get it around a human brainstem now), the image analysis suites, and the hardware that can support the parameter sets it would output. It's a matter of maybe 2-3 years out before we are likely to see our first live mammalian brain digitization and replatforming (less for the destructive-scan version, since it just requires higher energy levels and less care of target survival), and maybe 4-5 years from human replatforming.

I'd say it's closer to 50 years.

The process has too much information loss, even if you can take the image. Slicing brains and then scanning the slices only captures the connectome: the structure of the brain. The internal electric charge is lost, and a lot of people's minds is in that transient form.

In a few years we could probably construct a mind and run it on a computer, but it wouldn't be any particular person's mind. It'd be based on some sort of average of multiple brain scans, and would have to be taught and grown inside a virtual environment like a baby. The technology to do that is pretty darn close, but I think the main block is that it'd be considered unethical to experiment with human brains, even if they were completely simulated.

 

[Jayjay]

Even if we reduce our species to living on the barest of resources possible, with the finest nuclear technology, those resources will run out eventually. We are not going to become technological Gods, in spite of what the optimists say. Conserve as much as possible, so our species and other life on Earth can survive as long as possible, and Drink the champagne.

So if we waste resources into becoming technological gods, rather than champagne... what can we lose?

If you're right, and it's pointless, humanity will go extinct anyways. No loss there.

If you're wrong, no matter how unlikely, then the technological gods have more time to ponder the same problem and/or drink their digital champagne.

 

[bilby]

Besides, in affluent countries fertility rates are already below 2, so if it were a dystopia, we're practically already living it.

Not at all. There's a VAST difference between doing something because you choose to do it, and doing something because you're under threat of punishment if you don't do it.

In affluent countries, fertility rates are below 2, and individuals can (and do) choose to have six, seven, eight children or more ... while some choose to have none at all.

A two child policy would needlessly penalise those who want lots of kids - I don't understand why they want that, but I am happy to defend their right to choose to do so.

Some people even like broccoli, so while making it illegal wouldn't make any difference to me personally, I would still side with those who opposed such a ban.

Authoritarianism isn't any more OK when the dictator is only telling you to do things you personally planned to do anyway.

 

[Jarhyn]

There's no active population control, NONE, that does not involve genocide or horrible oppression and forced abortions.

You are missing the point.

Let me try it another way. Let A = the number of people on this planet. Let B = the number of people that this planet can sustainably hold. Is it or is is not possible to have a discussion on this forum about whether A>B without all the namecalling and lies?

You are missing the point.

B is under a million. It's early stone age technology. The breakpoint is flint--you have to go back to before flint tools because flint is not a renewable resource and at that tech level there's basically no mining. I would be astounded if we could cleanly descend to that point without a massive overshoot due to war.

Thus the only real survival for the human race is to advance technology to the point that a high tech society is sustainable.

Your solution to the falling problem is "push hard to the side and hope you fall into orbit"

Better than the certain splat if you don't. You're going to have to shed an awful lot of weight (people) to get down to the point chutes work.

Well, I was thinking some of column A and some of column B: push out the arc to the side while using the time to shed weight via consensual methodology, so that even if you don't splat, you might still be able to do a rolling landing.

We already have the <5 micron imaging technology in development to do the digitization task (it's tested on live rodents, just need to get it around a human brainstem now), the image analysis suites, and the hardware that can support the parameter sets it would output. It's a matter of maybe 2-3 years out before we are likely to see our first live mammalian brain digitization and replatforming (less for the destructive-scan version, since it just requires higher energy levels and less care of target survival), and maybe 4-5 years from human replatforming.

I'd say it's closer to 50 years.

The process has too much information loss, even if you can take the image. Slicing brains and then scanning the slices only captures the connectome: the structure of the brain. The internal electric charge is lost, and a lot of people's minds is in that transient form.

In a few years we could probably construct a mind and run it on a computer, but it wouldn't be any particular person's mind. It'd be based on some sort of average of multiple brain scans, and would have to be taught and grown inside a virtual environment like a baby. The technology to do that is pretty darn close, but I think the main block is that it'd be considered unethical to experiment with human brains, even if they were completely simulated.

Oh, you might have missed this: https://today.duke.edu/2023/04/brain-images-just-got-64-million-times-sharper

 

[laughing dog]

Meanwhile, catastrophic climate change is coming a lot sooner than governments are able to plan for it. The best we can do now is try to find ways to mitigate it.

We found the solution to that one in the 1950s too.

But the neo-luddites refuse to allow us to act.

Many of these neo-luddites are also the neo-malthusian control freaks who want us to commit genocide.

There's a huge overlap between the sets "People who oppose nuclear power" and "People who claim the world is overpopulated". The existence of either set is the real problem here.

There's no technical, physical, or even biological problem here at all. We don't need to find solutions that already exist. We need to stop blocking their implementation - and that's a purely psychological set of problems.

People believe things that are untrue, and are determined to prevent anyone from acting as though their nonsense were nonsensical.

Changing all power sources to nuclear and renewable energy sources would halt our contribution to intensifying climate change, but the current process continues until the climate attains it’s new “equilibrium”.

OK.

So, what do you want to do about that?

My point is that there is no solution at this point for the effects of climate change. While it is possible we may find a technological solution to the future climate mess, I am not sanguine. At best, we may be able to ameliorate some of the expected changes in climate.

I think the world needs to start bracing itself for these changes now in order to mitigate the effects of climate change.

OK.

So...

Do you think that's not happening?

I know it is not happening.

If there's something we can do, and the alternative is to just give up and die, I expect we will do it.

What would give you pause to think that? The longer we wait to do something, the higher the effort and resources needed with a lower chance of success.

 

[lostone]

Even if we reduce our species to living on the barest of resources possible, with the finest nuclear technology, those resources will run out eventually. We are not going to become technological Gods, in spite of what the optimists say. Conserve as much as possible, so our species and other life on Earth can survive as long as possible, and Drink the champagne.

So if we waste resources into becoming technological gods, rather than champagne... what can we lose?

If you're right, and it's pointless, humanity will go extinct anyways. No loss there.

If you're wrong, no matter how unlikely, then the technological gods have more time to ponder the same problem and/or drink their digital champagne.

What can we lose? We can become extinct sooner, rather than later We can take steps to make our species survive longer. We're all going to die, but most of us would prefer to die later, rather than sooner.

 

[Elixir]

The slash and burn doesn't pay for the destroyed rainforest.

A "slash and burn" human population is no danger to the rainforest ecosystem unless the human population practicing "slash and burn" is too big for the rainforest.

Leave the rainforest alone for a geological moment and it will back with a vengeance, as long as there’s still any remnant.

The problem is the large species need large areas to have viable populations. If you push it too small before it roars back you'll end up with a messed-up system because the large animals will be gone. There are also the species that will be driven to extinction in sky islands.

Absolutely true. Evolution doesn’t work backwards. If a new niche is created, a new (to that niche) organism will fill it. If that niche favors new attributes, those attributes will come to dominate the “new” population … evolution!
Apex predators will take a few million more years to “replace” with whatever comes next than say, bacteria.

 

[Jayjay]

We already have the <5 micron imaging technology in development to do the digitization task (it's tested on live rodents, just need to get it around a human brainstem now), the image analysis suites, and the hardware that can support the parameter sets it would output. It's a matter of maybe 2-3 years out before we are likely to see our first live mammalian brain digitization and replatforming (less for the destructive-scan version, since it just requires higher energy levels and less care of target survival), and maybe 4-5 years from human replatforming.

I'd say it's closer to 50 years.

The process has too much information loss, even if you can take the image. Slicing brains and then scanning the slices only captures the connectome: the structure of the brain. The internal electric charge is lost, and a lot of people's minds is in that transient form.

In a few years we could probably construct a mind and run it on a computer, but it wouldn't be any particular person's mind. It'd be based on some sort of average of multiple brain scans, and would have to be taught and grown inside a virtual environment like a baby. The technology to do that is pretty darn close, but I think the main block is that it'd be considered unethical to experiment with human brains, even if they were completely simulated.

Oh, you might have missed this: https://today.duke.edu/2023/04/brain-images-just-got-64-million-times-sharper

5 micron resolution is nowhere near good enough to scan individual neurons and synapses. And still does nothing about the problem with capturing long-term electric charges.

 

[Merle]

I wander if I should just shake my head in sorrow and walk away from the slander at this site. Are the debate tactics here no better than Creationist tactics?

No. they are human tactics sadly.

Ad hominem attacks may be human, but they are not good. Creationist who falsely accuse evolutionists of supporting evolution because they think it allows them to do evil are using an ad hominem attack. Likewise, anybody who falsely accuses good scientists that are concerned about population overshoot of doing so only because they want to do something wrong are using an ad hominem attack. Such arguments are a logical fallacy.

Even if my motives were bad--they are not--that would in no case diminish the strong scientific case that the population is in overshoot.

 

[Merle]

It is never a waste of time to carefully and fastidiously explain what you mean when you are proposing an address towards one of the three levers: acceleration, deceleration (really an acceleration eithed perpendicular or opposed to the acceleration), and/or the hard stop.

Read the opening post. I am not here to discuss a solution. I am here to discuss the extent of the problem.

If you want my solution, I propose that we heavily invest in the study of ecology and population overshoot, and heavily investigate technical solutions. I would like to see strong commitments to alternative energy and reducing CO2 emissions. Regarding population, I want the problem to be widely known, with solutions like empowering women, abortions and contraceptives readily available. I want women everywhere to be encouraged to limit childbirths. But I am not asking that we force them to do so.

Yes, many scientists say things that, like you, they do not realize is the same as a call to genocide.

They did not think their cunning statements all the way through. EIther we die together or we live together.

No, Milton Saier is not supporting genocide. Read his article. I am not supporting genocide. Read what I wrote. The thousands of concerned scientists I referred to in my past post are not supporting genocide, or at least not most of them.

Please quit making things up. Nobody here is supporting genocide.

 

[Merle]

No. You may think you are for moving the limit but your approach does not actually do that.

In context "moving the limit" means increasing the capacity of the Earth to support humans. I am all for this moving of the limit. I am all for technical solutions that "move the limit," that make it possible for more people to live prosperously on this planet.

In my day job I am an engineer. I work to make things better for people, and in my small way do things that make it possible for more people to prosper in this world.

My approach here on this thread in no way prevents us from "moving the limit". If you think I have said something like that, quote it back.

Please do not just make false things up about people. That does nothing to promote this conversation.

 

[Merle]

You are against looking at the implications of what you're handwaving.

What I am handwaving is that we should be seriously discussing the predicament that many scientists say we are in.

Can you please explain to me the harmful implications of discussing the predicament that many scientists say we are in?

 

[Merle]

You are missing the point.

B is under a million. It's early stone age technology. The breakpoint is flint--you have to go back to before flint tools because flint is not a renewable resource and at that tech level there's basically no mining. I would be astounded if we could cleanly descend to that point without a massive overshoot due to war.

Thus the only real survival for the human race is to advance technology to the point that a high tech society is sustainable.

No, you are missing my point.

When scientists talk about the carrying capacity of the Earth, they are not talking about what would have been possible in the stone age. They are talking about what level of population can be sustained with the best technology we can expect to have available before we find we have exhausted the cheapest supply of non-renewable resources, before we have saturated the Earth with pollutants that the Earth has not been able to process.

There is a strong basis of peer-reviewed papers that the carrying capacity is under 8 billion people. Many peer reviewed studies put it under 4 billion. See https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/how-many-people-can-earth-actually-support . As we are at 8 billion people and growing, that is a concern.

 

[Politesse]

Read the opening post. I am not here to discuss a solution. I am here to discuss the extent of the problem.

If you want my solution, I propose that we heavily invest in the study of ecology and population overshoot, and heavily investigate technical solutions. I would like to see strong commitments to alternative energy and reducing CO2 emissions. Regarding population, I want the problem to be widely known, with solutions like empowering women, abortions and contraceptives readily available. I want women everywhere to be encouraged to limit childbirths. But I am not asking that we force them do so.

How is it helpful to put the spotlight on the supposed macro problem of overpopulation, for which there is no evidence, rather than on the actual, definable, measurable problems the planet faces? The study of ecology is certainly underfunded, but the existence of "too many" poor people is not the reason why. Many talented people are in fact seeking solutions to many ecological problems, and the existence of a "too big" human population does not prevent them from doing so. I support a woman's right to choose whether to have children, but it is because I think she has a natural right to bodily autonomy, not because I hate women who "choose wrong".

Also, how could overpopulation possibly be more "well known" than it already is? Who on god's green earth has not heard of the supposed problem of overpopulation? Not any ecologists or social scientists, certainly. Who still needs to know about your daffy beliefs that hasn't yet?

 

[Merle]

There's no active population control, NONE, that does not involve genocide or horrible oppression and forced abortions.

There is no dog that can fly.

As nobody here is suggesting active population control, and nobody here is saying that dogs can fly, why don't we stick to discussing what people have actual said?

 

[Politesse]

You are missing the point.

B is under a million. It's early stone age technology. The breakpoint is flint--you have to go back to before flint tools because flint is not a renewable resource and at that tech level there's basically no mining. I would be astounded if we could cleanly descend to that point without a massive overshoot due to war.

Thus the only real survival for the human race is to advance technology to the point that a high tech society is sustainable.

No, you are missing my point.

When scientists talk about the carrying capacity of the Earth, they are not talking about what would have been possible in the stone age. They are talking about what level of population can be sustained with the best technology we can expect to have available before we find we have exhausted the cheapest supply of non-renewable resources, before we have saturated the Earth with pollutants that the Earth has not been able to process.

There is a strong basis of peer-reviewed papers that the carrying capacity is under 8 billion people. Many peer reviewed studies put it under 4 billion. See https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/how-many-people-can-earth-actually-support . As we are at 8 billion people and growing, that is a concern.

I note that you have only read the first part of the article you're linking, which goes on to very sensibly point out that numbers alone do not give one enough information to define a policy.

 

[Merle]

Read the opening post. I am not here to discuss a solution. I am here to discuss the extent of the problem.

If you want my solution, I propose that we heavily invest in the study of ecology and population overshoot, and heavily investigate technical solutions. I would like to see strong commitments to alternative energy and reducing CO2 emissions. Regarding population, I want the problem to be widely known, with solutions like empowering women, abortions and contraceptives readily available. I want women everywhere to be encouraged to limit childbirths. But I am not asking that we force them do so.

How is it helpful to put the spotlight on the supposed macro problem of overpopulation, for which there is no evidence

There is abundant evidence that the population is probably above the carrying capacity. See:

How many people can Earth actually support?

It's not just a matter of quantity.

www.science.org.au

and

Carrying capacity - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Also, how could overpopulation possibly be more "well known" than it already is? Who on god's green earth has not heard of the supposed problem of overpopulation? Not any ecologists or social scientists, certainly. Who still needs to know about your daffy beliefs that hasn't yet?

There are a whole lot of people on this thread that don't understand the evidence that we are in population overshoot, so maybe those of us who are concerned should start educating people.

 

[Politesse]

That's because you've yet to present any....

 

[Merle]

I note that you have only read the first part of the article you're linking, which goes on to very sensibly point out that numbers alone do not give one enough information to define a policy.

I note that you are missing the fact that I have not defined a policy.

Why do you keep complaining that I have not defined a policy, then complain that I shouldn't be defining a policy?

 

[Merle]

That's because you've yet to present any....

Try:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.142033699

and

Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future

We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have received little attention and require urgent action. First, we review the evidence that future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its...

www.frontiersin.org