[Ibon]

Yes, domesticated animals are different than wild, and we are certainly domesticated. I'd say that started long before Mozart's time, and I'd say it's gone beyond domestication to infantilization (though perhaps those are ultimately similar).

So true. Especially about the infantilization. My point is not to renounce the domestication. It is not to revert back to some HG pre agriculture existence.

My point is really nothing more than we carry on as best we can but for those of us that would like to stare the subversive naked truth in the eye, that we understand that we are setting ourselves up for the OP to come back into our midst, and this will be a Malthusian wet dream on steroids as I see it. And these consequences will hone us, will be transformative, will make us wiser and that all that looks debilitating as disease and starvation ravages our numbers will also make us stronger. That which will make us less secure will strengthen us as a species.

This truely is subversive to a degree that 99.9% of folks cannot even understand this let alone ALLOW themselves to even consider it. And yet it is the naked truth of our times. And it is a deeply spiritual truth if you can see how this restoration of balance is almost a perfect planetary response to the current manifestation of Homo Sapiens as a virus n the planet.

The Overshoot Predator is Planet Earths white blood cells.

I love humans. To call them a virus is not misanthropic. It is a courageous attempt to name a spade a spade.

What does the alcoholic learn on his first AA course when starting his long and arduous path toward recovery. He needs to state without denial, "I am an alcoholic, I am an alcoholic, I am an alcoholic.

If Rio and Tokyo and Copenhagen would have been affective each of these conventions on climate change would have started with all participants standing and holding hands and saying "I am a virus on my planet, I am a virus on my planet, I am a virus on my planet. Followed by raising their arms to the heavens and calling forth in worship and prayer for the The Overshoot Predator to descend.

[dohboi]

I'm glad you find some kind of hope out of what's coming. Orlov thinks it is more likely to dehumanize us--literally make us something less than human--than to make us wiser. Probably there will be a bit of each--Mad Max indeed.

[Newfie]

Humanity has such a varied record that I use the word carefully. In the twisted syntax of our language how can you "dehumanize" folks who kill their women because they didn't get a dowry or because they married outside of the approved tribe? Yet these things occur, daily. To be "human" is not only to be kind and thoughtful, it is to be mean, selfish, and vengeful, not to mention murderous.

We are ALL of these things, each one of us. For good or bad. Mostly we Westerners have the ability to cluck our tongues at others only because of our fortune of birth. So I try to not get too righteous, there but for the grace of God go I.

[Ibon]

There are a number of intractable impediments to cultural evolution toward a sustainable future that have been often discussed on this forum. Just to list a a few as a reminder. Resolving climate change in a growing global population. Ethically reducing population growth. Transitioning toward a zero growth economic system. Resolving geopolitical tensions around resource constraints. Biodiversity loss. Disparity of wealth. Political polarization. etc. etc.

Take a moment to focus on this whole suite of intractable problems instead of one issue at a time and you will notice a common denominator.

Allow yourself the morbid fantasy of the worlds population declining by 70% in the next 40 years. And then consider once again these intractable problems.

Cultural evolution can move quickly. Our basic human nature, the biological legacy in our genes, moves slowly. Unlike fruit flies generations are longed lived. It will take tens of thousands of years for basic human nature to evolve in whatever direction the external environment imposes on our collective trajectory forward.

That common denominator to solve all those intractable problems is a severe contraction of our human population.

The current divide between physical reality and political and cultural reality is really highly predictive of an upcoming population crash. It's logical when considering how long the linear growth has been extended with technology and fossil fuels.

The whole point of worshiping The Overshoot Predator is acknowledging that it represents the only viable pathway out of a labyrinth full of dead ends.

It is an optimists last thread to hang on....

[Pops]

Collapse as the solution to collapse? I think you have the wrong impression of optimism my friend. Personally, if me and everyone I know is dead, I won't give a rip.

How to measure the extent of we pond scum? Is today the day we exceed 50% in the exponential progression?

I'd like to think we will see the approaching edge of the scum-line across the open water and halt our progression before the die-off happens. Is the fact that some few are talking about limits any indication or reason for optimism or is that just an aberration, an effect of too much open water leisure time?

Optimism to me is hoping Limits will impose limits on us and save us from population collapse in spite of ourselves, after all I'm actually partial to some individual humans.

[Ibon]

How to measure the extent of we pond scum? Is today the day we exceed 50% in the exponential progression?

It is not about measuring it. There is no value in trying to pinpoint something whose dynamic and variables are too fluid. Even if you could define a number would that change the intractable nature of our problem? Overshoot by definition is a check mate of sorts. That can be a check mate of your life style as well as your viability as a species. We are there.

What better preparation can you give to your children, grandchildren and friends than to let them understand that the macro phenomenon moving forward will the playing out of the consequences of overshoot and all the noble efforts we will make, some of them valuable toward eventual solutions, will only occur with the necessary process of severe contraction of our global population and consumption. If we don't understand the upcoming contraction than how can we remain hopeful as we attempt solutions?

Resignation and denial is not confronting the frame that holds the big picture. And that frame is undoubtedly being drawn by The Overshoot Predator.

[Ibon]

Collapse as the solution to collapse?

Yes, there is a point when overshoot narrows down all the options accordingly. Collapse is not homogeneous. And does not have to follow a narrative to its bitter end. Humans are going to apply all their resilience and noble and primitive instincts to persevere as we always have.

But let's not fool ourselves that we can design our way out of the physical limits being applied to 7 billion humans.

[Newfie]

Pops,

I personally see no way whatsoever that our current population can be sustained.

The collapse is inevitable as the sun rising.

[Pops]

I know you guys believe what you say. It is silly to argue with your belief so I won't.

But I will point out that Eirlich believed starvation and collapse was imminent within the decade back in 60-whatever (actually he was just the most famous of the neo-malthusians that had been saying similar since the 40's). He wasn't just a casual anonymous poster on a message board either, he put it out there! He said 4 billion was way too many and most would starve by 1975. In fact he had some pretty draconian ideas of what should be done to avoid that fate.

You know I don't bring up that failed prediction to poke you in the eye, mainly because that's the way my knee jerks as well, LOL. But rather, it is to point out that we don't really know the size of our pond, how much we cover or what trick we'll stumble over to eek out a few more millions of carrying capacity that doesn't involve either Graeme's techno-utopia, OF2's BAUtopia or, on the opposite end, some of the silly Soylent Solutions bandied about in the past on these very boards.


The population growth rate did peak peak (or appears to) back in '80-something. I'd offer that it had a lot to do with reductions in infant and child mortality. As child and especially infant mortality falls, the birth rate falls soon after ...




This is an ongoing trend:




Will we make it to 10 or 11 billion before the population trend reverses?
How will PO and GW affect that trend and what separate effects will they produce?

Don't know, but I'd suggest that the better way to bring down the population is to reduce the birth rate and the better way to do that is to bring down the child mortality rate so mom is satisfied with one or two rather than 4 or 5 or 8.

I know, kind of a different take on the old standby of hoping that all the mothers starve
.

[Newfie]

Pops,

You are right there is much we don't know, and you and I will most likely not be here to know the ultimate answer.

To be clear I'm not advocating any action to bring down population, I just don't see any viable way for humanity to ever come to grips with that problem. It is a problem that will be left to Nature to resolve in its own way.

Back to Eirlich, I think he was wrong in timing, not in ultimate out come.

But, perhaps it is just wishful thinking on my part. I really mourn what humanity has done to the natural world. Like Farley Mowat I weep for the "others" who have no real advocates.

[Ibon]

Don't know, but I'd suggest that the better way to bring down the population is to reduce the birth rate and the better way to do that is to bring down the child mortality rate so mom is satisfied with one or two rather than 4 or 5 or 8.

I know, kind of a different take on the old standby of hoping that all the mothers starve
.

In a perfect world humans will glide into a balanced population as physical constraints continue through sound policies and rational decisions. All of this happening with the freedom of acting out our own destiny whereby no feed backs from nature contribute to the process. No limits imposed by natural consequences to direct our projectory forward. That we remain superior and omnipotent not requiring to learn from natures hand. that we suffer not our excesses. That we are spared mass starvation and disease.

The Overshoot Predator will thus remain some morbid concept and fantasy

And so we can remain this special species apart from the rest of the natural world free of its underlying principals as we rationally bring ourselves down to a couple of billion. Spared the humility of the OP's wrath.

Remaining split from our natural world.

Yes, ideologically, I must acknowledge, that in worshipping the Overshoot Predator, I am seeing him/her as the agent that brings humanity back in the fold of being part of the natural world, humbled and subservient to Mother Earth. It is perhaps even some strange twisted christian mythology that somehow implanted itself in my atheist brain; that we will pay for our sins and arrogance and be smited by a vengeful god.

Sometimes you have to have the courage to explore deep within your psyche at what the archetypes are that make up your world view.

How many of us can lay bare our internal narratives and look them in the eye?

[Newfie]

Sometimes you have to have the courage to explore deep within your psyche at what the archetypes are that make up your world view.

How many of us can lay bare our internal narratives and look them in the eye?

Great post.

You ever read Jay Fitzgerald? You might find a kindred spirit there.

http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Steading-Life ... 0595387586

[Ibon]

But, perhaps it is just wishful thinking on my part. I really mourn what humanity has done to the natural world. Like Farley Mowat I weep for the "others" who have no real advocates.

Of the 7 billion on the planet, so few understand what Farley Mowat meant. His sentiment was born from journeying countless days in the boreal forest and other natural areas where "the others" were tangible and real for him, as in a river otter gliding past his canoe. He developed a spiritual bond to wilderness. He was deeply humbled by nature.

Deeply humbled by nature. Worshipping The Overshoot Predator.

[Ibon]

Sometimes you have to have the courage to explore deep within your psyche at what the archetypes are that make up your world view.

How many of us can lay bare our internal narratives and look them in the eye?

Great post.

You ever read Jay Fitzgerald? You might find a kindred spirit there.

http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Steading-Life ... 0595387586

Not familiar with it but will certainly check it out.

[Tanada]

When discussing infant mortality rates one thing many statisticians are either unaware of or outright just ignore is the premature birth rate. Up until the 1950's a child born in the 8th month had a reduced chance of living to adulthood and children born earlier than that were unable to survive more than a day or two. From the early 1950's to today the North America and Europe have invested huge monetary and technological resources into helping premature infants survive, such that a 5 month term infant now has a 20% chance of living to adulthood.

The unseen side effect of this is genetic traits that cause premature birth which were once eliminated because these unfortunate infants died at or very near birth have grown to adulthood and had children of their own. This graph from the Canadian Health Service shows the gradual increase in number of premature births


From 7.2% of all births in 1998 to 7.9% of all births in 2007.

Granted it is not a huge rapid increase, but if or when we lose modern medicine technology those 8% of all babies will die at or shortly after birth just like they used too. Walk through the 'baby section' of any cemetery in America that dates back to the 1950's or earlier. Babies used to account for a significant portion of all funerals, with modern technology that is no longer the case.

[Pops]

It is perhaps even some strange twisted christian mythology that somehow implanted itself in my atheist brain; that we will pay for our sins and arrogance and be smited by a vengeful god.

That's good, Ibon, I'd bet that is a common feeling amongst the doomish - whether they come right out and say it or not. Same with latter day, technology-enabled Luddites like me, I can dig the irony of tapping out a luddite message on a 2.4Ghz Duo-Core iMac over a g4LTE data link to a fibre optic backbone to be accessible just about anywhere on earth - in real time.


I don't doubt the limits or necessarily think we'll be successful at voluntarily reducing population to something more sustainable without ruining what carrying capacity we currently have. But like the cliché goes, plan for the worst and hope.

[KaiserJeep]

The only thing that all of you are ignoring is that the presence of the overshoot population is the cause of so many other things.

Prime among them would be the escalating species die-off, happening faster than any in the fossil record. Think about that one for a moment. 65 million years ago, a giant rock fell to Earth and cashed in the chips for all the dinosaurs. Within an eye-blink of geological time, a mere 1500 years or so, 90% of all plant and animal species became extinct. Yet the presence of 7+ billions of humans is already causing species extinction faster than that. Moreover, the rate of extinctions is accelerating.

The true overshoot predator is humans, and we are feasting on the rest of the biosphere.

The sheer hubris of any of you, to speak of even the remotest hope of saving the planet. Those words are of the same significance as those spoken by a yeast organism in a vat of soon-to-be-beer.

During the Cold War, we had enough nukes to burn the surface of the Earth down to bedrock hundreds of times over. Now our nuclear capability has degraded down to the ability to sterilize the Earth perhaps tens of times.

There are only two significant questions remaining:

1) Will the coming die-off of humanity be a soft reset, resulting from an ecology so broken in so many places that the crash happens but leaves many species surviving, or will it be a hard reset where nuclear fire destroys everything larger than bacteria?

2) Will any of us be living in space before the final crash of the biosphere, or will it also be GAME OVER MAN for the human species?

[Ibon]

From 7.2% of all births in 1998 to 7.9% of all births in 2007.

Granted it is not a huge rapid increase, but if or when we lose modern medicine technology those 8% of all babies will die at or shortly after birth just like they used too. Walk through the 'baby section' of any cemetery in America that dates back to the 1950's or earlier. Babies used to account for a significant portion of all funerals, with modern technology that is no longer the case.

The human female suffered as evolution enlarged the human cranium, and it met its limits passing through the pelvic bone during birth. Birth has always been a far riskier event for human females than many other mammals for this reason. So Tanada, we can not only add the population increase due to surviving premature births, but also to an increase of surviving moms.

[Ibon]

The only thing that all of you are ignoring is that the presence of the overshoot population is the cause of so many other things.

I am going to repost my first paragraph above where what you stated is exactly what I also said. Do you even read and digest others posts before launching yourself into outer space?

There are a number of intractable impediments to cultural evolution toward a sustainable future that have been often discussed on this forum. Just to list a a few as a reminder. Resolving climate change in a growing global population. Ethically reducing population growth. Transitioning toward a zero growth economic system. Resolving geopolitical tensions around resource constraints. Biodiversity loss. Disparity of wealth. Political polarization. etc. etc.

Take a moment to focus on this whole suite of intractable problems instead of one issue at a time and you will notice a common denominator.

[Ibon]

Same with latter day, technology-enabled Luddites like me, I can dig the irony of tapping out a luddite message on a 2.4Ghz Duo-Core iMac over a g4LTE data link to a fibre optic backbone to be accessible just about anywhere on earth - in real time.[/i]

Beaming around the planet luddite messages is an act of a subversive and neurotic mind ! lol