[dohboi]

The 4th plus 3 = ??

Jus' sayin'

[efarmer]

With us approaching 7 Billion Humans on the Earth since we had 1 Billion in the early 20TH century the arguments are very dicey and IMHO bogus. People have to burn to eat, grow to eat, and in the West we have to consume at a level unknown in human history to fit the the system we have made and forged that required embodied energy at a level that is unsustainable by any measure known to science of science fiction.

Pumping false stuff about pole hurricanes is tilting at windmills. Humans come together and get serious and forge real responses to challenges or we instead do the American political game. Polarize, talk about religious view, spiritual convictions, allow dire life for fellow citizens based on political persuasions and financial acumen, and in short, allow the precepts for class and civil strife to accumulate to the point of horrible conditions in response to votes for the favorite Goldman Sachs and New York thief entity that provides money to your preselected candidate from a bought and sold political party. And yes fight the contrived opposition to disenfranchise yourself as a freewill voter in America.

You are supposed to do this and bitch a whole bunch if your placebo wins or loses.

It is time to work together on a planetary basis. It will require material rich people on credit to share and take less to equalize. It is not a death sentence nor real insult to a loving and good lifestyle. Americans and other greedy populations do not know how nor wish to do this and will probably not. This is the seed of the nasty results and not the climate and energy challenges.
E

[dohboi]

ef, I agree that our high-consumption society is at the base of most of our problems (though climate and energy constraints may be the things that smack us down.)

So how did Americans and others become so damn greedy? Haven't humans always been greedy?

(And "Pumping false stuff about pole hurricanes is tilting at windmills." ??? There is an enormous and persistent cyclone over the Arctic. Do you have evidence otherwise?)

[Newfie]

If you truly believe that we are all alike, that racism has no place, then you understand that it is not that Americans are greedy, or that Germans are war like, or that the French are better lovers, or that blacks are...whatever.

We are all the same and any group would, within statistical b ounces, act like any other group in the same circumstances.

So the more correct (surely politically correct if nothing else) way to say it is "what makes HUMANS so greedy?".

I just read E. O. Wilson's "The Social Conquest of Earth" and he provides some good answers.

The point is that humans are as humans are and there is precious little we an do to change it. Buy popcorn and preps to save your own butt and that is about it.

[dinopello]

So the more correct (surely politically correct if nothing else) way to say it is "what makes HUMANS so greedy?".

All living things are greedy. From bacteria, to plants to locusts to lions, living organisms will consume, reproduce and spread to the extent that 'nature' allows them. The difference with humans is that we think we are different.

[Lore]

So the more correct (surely politically correct if nothing else) way to say it is "what makes HUMANS so greedy?".

All living things are greedy. From bacteria, to plants to locusts to lions, living organisms will consume, reproduce and spread to the extent that 'nature' allows them. The difference with humans is that we think we are different.

Not all living things are greedy. I've never heard of bactaria to lions competing for money and power. We've developed a lust for symbols of our greed that extend beyond our basic nature to survive and reproduce.

[dinopello]

Not all living things are greedy. I've never heard of bactaria to lions competing for money and power. We've developed a lust for symbols of our greed that extend beyond our basic nature to survive and reproduce.

Come on, Lore. Bacteria doesn't have the lame-stream media to report on it that's for sure so that explains why you haven't heard of it but put two different bacteria in a petri dish and they each will selfishly consume whatever resources are in there while they make their environment toxic and reproduce (like bunnies). They will have no discussion about reducing their population growth or how the environment is getting toxic or anything. Just eat, poop, and reproduce as fast as they can until something external limits their activity. We do something similar. On the plus side for bacteria, they don't complain about their lot in life.

And, lions fight over territorial control, domination over the females and resources all the time. They are a bit smarter than us and didn't bother creating artificial 'money' to fight over. A male lion that takes over territory from another male will kill the children of the defeated male and take the females for himself. A human tries that and he could end up in the slammer these days.

As a species, we arrogantly think we are better than that. If we actually behaved better then maybe it wouldn't be arrogance but I don't see us behaving so much differently.

[efarmer]

The points are made and well taken about greed being a national rather than species trait. To frame my statement better, I would instead state that we had a culture that broke from British Colonial Rule in a place with sparse population and vast natural resources and set up a governmental experiment that allowed individual self expression and prospering as limited by ingenuity and resource availability as well as by the other factors of luck, family, and culture. Other places have enjoyed or sought this as well. The fact that American life has been so richly resourced and politically enabled for so long has allowed our natural human tendencies toward all things lofty, selfish, or nonsensical to flourish to a very large degree. Do not take this to mean I loathe my nation or fellow citizens or have an axe to grind.
Resource limits are a challenge to this at a pure physics level. Many of us do not wish to accept the notion, some of us accept the notion and do no like it much, and some of us seem to be disappointed the worst consequences escape us over time. And so, we find ourselves having this conversation at PeakOil.Com And I do enjoy the honesty and frank exchanges we pull off here and it is why I duck in and listen to the PeakOil "jungle drums" regularly.

[Lore]

Come on, Lore. Bacteria doesn't have the lame-stream media to report on it that's for sure so that explains why you haven't heard of it but put two different bacteria in a petri dish and they each will selfishly consume whatever resources are in there while they make their environment toxic and reproduce (like bunnies). They will have no discussion about reducing their population growth or how the environment is getting toxic or anything. Just eat, poop, and reproduce as fast as they can until something external limits their activity. We do something similar. On the plus side for bacteria, they don't complain about their lot in life.

Even bacteria are self regulating. They usually die with their host.

And, lions fight over territorial control, domination over the females and resources all the time. They are a bit smarter than us and didn't bother creating artificial 'money' to fight over. A male lion that takes over territory from another male will kill the children of the defeated male and take the females for himself. A human tries that and he could end up in the slammer these days.

I believe you're talking about natural selection here and the survival of the species, not greed. Lions don't go on to wipe out all of their food source or trash their environment.

As a species, we arrogantly think we are better than that. If we actually behaved better then maybe it wouldn't be arrogance but I don't see us behaving so much differently.

We create wars, often for little else other then power and wealth and the right to enforce one set of ideals on another.

[dinopello]

OK, Lore you win - humans are the worst. But nobody wars like the ants. They can birth specialized soldiers at will, go on blitzkriegs that make the Nazis look like pansies and kill the opposing queen and eat the workers! And, ants take more than they can consume and store it to support 'endless' growth. We (or at least most of us) know that growth can't be endless in a finite world, I wonder if they do ? The main difference for ants vs Humans is when the anteater comes along.



Nature finds a way !

[SeaGypsy]

Termites create large areas clear of trees as they core them out and a cyclone blows them over. The process takes thousands of years, but it does happen:



Feral pigs and camels destroy waterholes:





Totemism is the most peculiar human trait, can be traced all the way back through anthropology; makes us virtually unlimited in our capacity for rapaciousness.

[dohboi]

I know of no traditional cultures who think that limitless growth is the main purpose of society, and that the main purpose for individual humans is endless self-aggrandizement.

It is modern industrial capitalist society that promotes these ideals, and--surprise, surprise--it is this culture that has come to threaten continued complex life on earth.

Obviously, all other species are either self-limiting or are effectively limited by their environment, or they would now be the predominant species on the planet.

[peripato]

My take is that this study is narrowly focused on biological and ecological factors. It ignores financial collapse, resource depletion, political collapse, etc.

It says, if nothing else happens first we have no more than 100 years on the earth as we know it.

It sets the BEST CASE we can expect. Other events could get us first.

Cheers.

I feel so much better now! /sarc

[peripato]

I know of no traditional cultures who think that limitless growth is the main purpose of society, and that the main purpose for individual humans is endless self-aggrandizement.

It is modern industrial capitalist society that promotes these ideals, and--surprise, surprise--it is this culture that has come to threaten continued complex life on earth.

Obviously, all other species are either self-limiting or are effectively limited by their environment, or they would now be the predominant species on the planet.

"Growth" is an innate human behaviour, a biological mammalian drive. If the North American Indians had the opportunity to expand and exploit their environment and other tribes, as the Anasazi and Iroquois did for example, they would.

[dohboi]

Yes, the ff boom certainly helped foster and encourage this toxic ideology in the west and now in the whole world. But most traditional societies have strong sets of taboos, many of which have the effect (and presumably the intent, at least originally) of limiting the negative effect of the people on the local environment.

We have not yet developed such a taboo against un-sequestering fossil carbon.