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THE Global Population Thread Pt. 4

Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 11:23:37

onlooker wrote:How well what you Ibon and Dohboi are discussing fits in with the theory of the "Tragedy of the Commons" which is defined as: The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling that resource through their collective action." So, the question still lingers can we ever act in the best interests of all together and particularly for the sake of the future and its generations? Only time will tell.


Yes... I am sticking here with Dohboi's point that we are collectively still adolescents. If you know well your child development, just think of any high school teenager, you understand that when a young adult first begins to question politics or life they usually fix really hard on an ideological position without any nuances and they become ardent in an almost humorous black and white position over issues. There are no shades of gray when you are an adolescent. Something is cool or lame. No in betweens.

Any form of self regulation of our population or consumption is viewed by ideologues on the right as inherently evil and put right away into the black box of communism for example. It is a very adolescent position. Ideologically fixed. No exceptions.

This is where I do believe one day external consequences will mature us. Natural events bend ideology and even your most ardent libertarian is not going to remain fixed in his liberty of the individual as sacrosanct above all else when we see the consequences of human overshoot tearing at the very fabric of our society which provides us the freedoms we enjoy.

I guess it does raise the question.

Is this extreme libertarian position in regards to our environment adolescent and subject to maturity through consequences

OR

Is this extreme libertarian position unyielding all the way down the slope of correction of our over population.

We really cannot be sure the answer to these questions...... there are questions at times that have no answers....... those annoying Buddhists like to raise those unanswerable questions... I really do think this is one of those.

Only time will tell.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 11:27:02

the beauty of serendipity.. You guys know the images of peak oil members that are highlighted on the left hand column of this site. When I posted the last post and reviewed it guess whose image appeared on that left hand column? Al Bartlett.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 11:49:59

The adolescent meme here is very relevant when you think that nothing has challenged this hubris in reference to the commons which Onlooker referred to in his post. You move from adolescence to adulthood when the external doesn't conform any longer to your adolescent internal narrative.

How many times have we seen this with adolescent individuals? Doesn't this apply in this case to our collective industrial civilization that has for over 200 years now experienced only linear growth with very little consequences.

This adolescent position in reference to the commons makes sense when you consider that the feedbacks to date are only nibbling on our collective toes.... we haven't had any significant consequence yet to challenge this adolescence. I mean direct consequences to our species exponential growth.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 14:53:36

Cog brings up tool use and control of fire. It could be argued that some other species do use 'tools' of various sorts, but we do seem to have specialized in this...for example I'm not sure any other species uses tools to make other tools...

And control of fire is really something not witnessed elsewhere in the non-human world that I'm aware of anyway.

So these may indeed predispose us to see the whole world as something controllable and here for our advantage. But many, many traditional cultures have come to understand the limits of their local ecologies and set up sets of rules or tabus about what members should and shouldn't do around over exploiting them.

But, as Ibon's post points out, moderns have come to see any such tabus or rules that help us live within limits and in closer connection to our natural surrounding as a kind of 'bondage,' as if having sisters and brothers who you share things with is the equivalent of slavery. This is the selfish, narcissistic, adolescent attitude that is now the basis of much of world culture. And one reason why, in a perverse sort of way, Trump is actually the perfect figure to lead the world down into the dust bin of history.

On the "Tragedy of the Commons," historically, the actual English Commons--places where villagers could graze their cattle and make other use of common land--were actually quite sustainably used by many people for a long time. It wasn't so much the numbers of people who destroyed the commons, but one or two powerful people who had the power to actually kick most of the others off the commons and then overgrazed them with sheep to make a fast buck as weaving mills were becoming automated and there was a seemingly endless demand for wool yarn to feed them. This process is sometimes known as enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

These were also powerful people who had the beginnings of a powerful new ideology, that whatever the 'market' demanded was automatically the greatest and highest good, and that it was those with the most capital who were the greatest benefactors of humanity and could basically do no harm...basically, that greed was good. This was the ideology that turned into capitalism.

The late Elinor Ostrom did great research on how managing the commons actually has and does work out in the real world rather than in atomistic abstract models. She got the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work before she died five years ago.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 15:05:42

I think Dohboi, brings up a point that should be stressed. No doubt exists that our collective plight is something that is part of our evolutionary capabilities and tendencies. However, the top down approach and the monopolization of decision making and power by a few has been a central theme in our evolution (since the advent of agriculture) as well. When you dissect the characteristics of these leaders or rulers they are quite immature in the sense of being driven by urges like greed, social status and power. Now, I know Ibon at this point you are thinking well the leaders are interchangeable and could represent any and all of us. However, something about the accumulation of wealth and power that drives a human to become an addicted slave to passions seems at work here. So, in summary, I am convinced that it would be wise for our healthy evolution to discard this form of management or power structure in favor of a more egalitarian horizontal decision making system.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 15:11:42

Cog wrote:I would argue that the first time a human picked up a tool or lit the first fire that we were freed from the bondage of nature's constraints. Humans aren't going to forget how to use tools no matter what eventually happens with resource constraints. Whether its 500 million or 7.5 billion, humans are what they are. Problem-solvers and tool users.


I saw your post that Dohboi quoted so I put you off ignore. Cog, you are 100% correct. It is through our tinkering nature as a species that we will one day learn to self regulate. We are problem solvers. Problem solvers not only on the ascent of exponential growth but even more importantly we will be problem solvers in managing constraints... Remember the ingenuity during WWII when we retooled whole industries for the war effort. How we rationed gas. How we planted victory gardens. We demonstrated then our ability to sacrifice for the common good.

Doing the same one day by agreeing to self regulate consumption and breeding is not a threat to a libertarian freedom loving individual. Even when the state is doing the regulating. It is to keep the fabric of society held together so that right which you so cherish can be preserved. It might really get to that point.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 15:16:30

Since I wrote the earlier posts this morning I have been 20 feet up a tree helping to build a tree cabin here at Totumas that we are getting ready for the high season starting in December. I was putting on the exterior wood siding looking into the canopy pondering this topic. Came up for lunch and wanted to share an insight before heading back into the forest.

This idea of our species self regulating, putting up some boundaries on consumption and breeding. Let's look a bit deeper and focus on the conservative freedom loving libertarian claiming any deference to the commons or any curtailing of ones personal freedom for the commons as smelling like communism. So first a review of how our conservative got to his ideology.

The ideological split between capitalism and socialism or communism was framed in the past century as two apposing ideologies. There are not many who can argue with the outcome. The creative engine of capitalism unleashed the individual's ability to pursue ones own economic destiny. With the back drop of a healthy environment there was not much to stop or brake the ascension of growth and per capita consumption and pursuit of personal freedom. Communism failed as an ideology. Period. The world embraced neo liberalism, capitalism and communism only survived in a few back water countries like Korea and Cuba or merged in a state regime like China. Russia is not communist , it is an oligarchy made rich on oil with rampant corruption.

That is the past. The conservative seeing government as egregious is understandable with this back drop. Now let's fast forward to severe ecological constraints and consequences as nature starts batting last. Our conservative libertarian pursuing his or her individual freedom and destiny free of any government intervention is going to be increasingly constrained by natural consequences right along with his liberal opposite.

Remember for a moment that both our liberal and conservative wash their hands at our dilemma in letting nature set the agenda. Letting nature bat last. Cog, our conservative representative here, freely admitted this in his earlier post. Well, nature will be batting last for decades and this will be the dominant constraining force that will threaten individual liberty. Whether you are a conservative or liberal in todays terms both will share the same demands on their governments up ahead when mother nature starts batting last. Whether it be in an increase in the police state of containing rebellion or in increasing the welfare state of the disenfranchised. Both will be making demands of the state.

So here is the poignant question after that long introduction

What role will the state play when your adversary is not an apposing political or economic ideology but mother nature herself? You know, mother nature who you all want to default to. What does problem solving kudzu ape do when the big squeeze comes?

Think about that for awhile.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 15:23:28

dohboi wrote:But, as Ibon's post points out, moderns have come to see any such tabus or rules that help us live within limits and in closer connection to our natural surrounding as a kind of 'bondage,' as if having sisters and brothers who you share things with is the equivalent of slavery. This is the selfish, narcissistic, adolescent attitude that is now the basis of much of world culture. And one reason why, in a perverse sort of way, Trump is actually the perfect figure to lead the world down into the dust bin of history. .


Today I am carrying on the same discussion on two separate venues, here at peakoil.com and another in a series of emails among family and friends. I am copying here something a friend Jody shared this morning. This is a feminine interpretation, quite brilliant. We are mostly a bunch of dudes here at peakoil.com. I would love to see more of the feminine expressed in these debates, especially when we address social and cultural issues. anyway, here is her comment

Historically famine, disease, and natural disasters as well kept us in check. Our freedom now threatens our existence. I see the Garden of Eden very clearly here. Knowledge of our nakedness leads us to make clothes which leads us to here. Our strength, our reasoning, has lead us away from what is not only important, but necessary to survive. Again, the separation of head and heart, and qualifying one as far superior and the other something to be destroyed. The Greeks did this, the Catholic Church did this. And we do this. The election of Trump was weird because we embraced some vulgar testicle-centered anti intellectual diatribe. Not the heart, certainly, not the head either but the gut.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 15:33:50

Serendipity indeed. I think your last post Ibon ties in to what I just posted. If we collectively can see ourselves literally in the same boat, that will give us an opportunity to be more cohesive and united and that would be a requisite for establishing a society or world in which nobody stood out above others in power or stature. It would be a milieu that would enable all people to rally around a common goal and not descend into partisanship and group power dynamics. We would be united by our common humanity in how that humanity makes us all vulnerable to the Overshoot Predator. No more ideologues with hateful divisive messages or demagoguery. Just people united by the common challenges to their well being.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 15:55:00

ol, we are indeed in the same boat in the sense of being on the same threatened planet.

But if you're one of the two billion or so who live on under two dollars a day, you might not feel like the few families that own a majority of the wealth on the planet are exactly in the same boat as you...indeed, many of us who make considerably more than $2/day may feel the same.

And the super rich certainly do show every indication that they are building their own 'boats'--see the survival shelters of the wealthy article--and are not likely to want to share these boats with the less than incredibly wealthy.

But yes, if all and sundry could wake up to the fact that there is just one boat here, and however low or high you are on the economic totem pole, we all have a collective interest for the future in preserving and stabilizing it...well, that would be nice. Any idea how to convince the uber-wealthy of this?
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 16:06:40

Well Dohboi, see that post which you yourself complimented in which Ibon points out how isolated and vulnerable the super wealthy will end up being eventually. I would think that would compell them to fall in line. But I think you are referring to here and now and short term horizon. Again, Ibon's argument seems destined to be totally accurate, we will not collectively do much until the Consequences forcefully impress upon us the need to do something. At that point my hope is that enough people will understand that the proverb "united we stand and divided we fall" has much truth to it.
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Re: World population grows through history

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 16 Oct 2017, 17:35:46

To a certain extent we are discussing the dynamics at play once the consequences reach a more destabilizing level. We are still very much in stable territory where intractable ideologies are firmly in place. Nothing yet happening to force or question these quite fixed realities.

Regarding the uber wealthy yes indeed their wealth is a crutch and a dependency. They are invested in the system where they have the advantage of their wealth. They will clutch harder to that wealth and advantage as things destabilize. Make no mistake. Their dependency is directly proportional to their inability to function outside of their financial advantage. They cannot fix things, they buy all their services and are actually quite helpless without their wealth. This deepens their dependency and fear. And they have no scruples about not sharing their wealth with the poor who they have written off.

Here is the rub.. When the uber wealthy think of human overshoot they believe all the poor will die before them, all the disadvantaged will perish first. This is the absolute height of delusion the wealthy believe. Because survival goes to the most resourceful. And who is more resourceful really, the rich guy buying all the services with money or the poor man who has spent his life fixing and repairing his few possessions not being able to replace what is broken.

There will come a time when the uber wealthy will be calling their peons to come fix their solar panels and no one will answer the phone. What will they then do?
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The overpopulation debate

Unread postby AdamB » Sat 21 Oct 2017, 20:47:43


Overpopulation has been debated since British economist Thomas Malthus famously warned in 1798 that humans could reproduce far faster than they could increase their food supply. But since Malthus’s time, world population has grown from 800 million to 7.5 billion today. Yet worries about overpopulation are back. In part that’s because lots more people are on the way, complicating efforts to deal with problems like climate change and water scarcity. The UN forecasts that in the near future the world will add about 83 million people annually. By 2100, world population will grow to 11.2 billion. On this edition of Global Journalist: a look at the growth of human population and the debate about its risks. Joining the program: Pamela Chirwa Banda, a Zambian demographer who also works for Zambia’s Ministry of Education. Corey Bradshaw, senior fellow in global ecology at Flinders University in


The population debate
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7.5 Billion People — That’s a lot!

Unread postby AdamB » Sun 29 Oct 2017, 23:00:38



As the inimitable Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” And indeed it is. Some guesswork is always involved and surprises crop up that change the course of events. Yet, it is probably clear to most of us that the world is likely to become an increasingly and unpleasantly crowded place as we move along through the 21st century. About 7.5 billion people share the earth with us right now, in 2017. That’s around twice the number that was here in 1970, 47 years ago. Roughly every 13 years since 1960, about a billion more people have come onboard, and this pattern continues. And we didn’t even arrive at our first billion until 1804, after existing for 75,000 years or so. The more folks we have, the more we’re going to get. It can’t go



7.5 Billion People — That’s a lot!
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Re: THE Global Population Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 30 Oct 2017, 06:39:05

Yup, until some existential event happens or we choose to stop having children at greater than the replacement rate the world is going to be crowded, especially in places where crops once grew abundantly without artificial fertilizer and machinery like India and China.
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To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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Re: THE Global Population Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby onlooker » Mon 30 Oct 2017, 08:29:13

Tanada wrote:Yup, until some existential event happens or we choose to stop having children at greater than the replacement rate the world is going to be crowded, especially in places where crops once grew abundantly without artificial fertilizer and machinery like India and China.

Well that existential event may not be too far away
https://www.livescience.com/58891-why-2 ... tters.html
On land, an increase of 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) would almost double the water deficit and would lead to a drop in wheat and maize harvests,according to NASA.
Moreover, global warming doesn't just increase temperatures; it also threatens the food, water, shelter, energy grid and health of humans, he said.
All of these threats are just around the corner, deMenocal said. The Earth is anticipated to exceed the 2.7 degrees F (1.5 degrees C) milestone in about 15 years — between 2032 and 2039, deMenocal said. The planet isexpected to surpass the 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) benchmark between 2050 and 2100, he said.

Also, the soils in many places are practically dead from the clearing of the supporting plant/animal climax ecosystem in those places to plant monoculture crops and overuse of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. See Final Empire a book written by William Kotke. Not to mention ongoing soil erosion as forest have been cut down wholesale. So, again climate change is a severe threat to large organisms in an already degraded Earth
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Re: THE Global Population Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby asg70 » Mon 30 Oct 2017, 10:51:19

Well, I dunno, all this weeping for Gaia just gives me the urge to make some chemtrails and fly to Greece. Whatcha say, Planty, will ya join me?

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Prince William warns that there are too many people in the w

Unread postby AdamB » Fri 03 Nov 2017, 12:42:54



Rapidly growing human populations risk having a "terrible impact" on the world, the Duke of Cambridge has warned. The Duke said that as a result, wildlife was being put under "enormous pressure" and called for the issue to be addressed with renewed vigour. His concerns echo those of his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, who in 2011 advocated “voluntary family limitation" as a means of solving overpopulation, which he described as the biggest challenge in conservation. His grandson, royal patron of the Tusk Trust, told the charity’s gala dinner in London that measures needed to be taken to save certain animal populations. “In my lifetime, we have seen global wildlife populations decline by over half,” he said. "We are going to have to work much harder, and think much deeper, if we are to ensure that human beings and the other species of animal with


Prince William warns that there are too many people in the world
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Re: Prince William warns that there are too many people in t

Unread postby asg70 » Fri 03 Nov 2017, 13:34:08

People will shoot the messenger on this one, but he's absolutely right. His father raised him well.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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