Hooray! You know that I care about your fortunes in that forbidding land. I even have an invite from you to visit. Keep us posted, dear.smallpoxgirl wrote:No longer Montana-bound. Now Montana-found.
Hooray! You know that I care about your fortunes in that forbidding land. I even have an invite from you to visit. Keep us posted, dear.smallpoxgirl wrote:No longer Montana-bound. Now Montana-found.
Newfie wrote: Many disagree with that but...sorry - you are wrong.
Newfie wrote:Ludi, I have a recipe for Zombie stew if that helps.
Ludi wrote:Newfie wrote: Many disagree with that but...sorry - you are wrong.
No, you are. Humans are part of nature, therefore morality is part of nature. Altruism is part of being human.
Ludi wrote:Newfie wrote:Ludi, I have a recipe for Zombie stew if that helps.
It might help, if you are in the stew.
davep wrote:I'm not sure if we're all capable of such evil. Some may prefer to die. But it's mere hypothesis, as neither of us have been put in that situation.
I'm also not sure you need to run off to pristine wilderness to survive.
Living in a fairly remote rural area (where everyone is packing) seems a good bet to me (well it would do, as that's what I've decided to do). If it involves being part of a militia, fair enough. What's your problem with helping out in communal defence?
I think I'd probably go mad if I was too isolated for a long period of time.
americandream wrote:SG
It's not a case of fighting, for me. I'm not a particulary heroic type.
However, I once beat a retreat from capitalism only to discover that I never really got away. If I've learnt anything from that, it's that unless we confront it and change the way we think, there will never be any relief from this incessant scramble for more.
SeaGypsy wrote:americandream wrote:SG
It's not a case of fighting, for me. I'm not a particulary heroic type.
However, I once beat a retreat from capitalism only to discover that I never really got away. If I've learnt anything from that, it's that unless we confront it and change the way we think, there will never be any relief from this incessant scramble for more.
Succinctly put, I agree.
Newfie wrote:SeaGypsy wrote:americandream wrote:SG
It's not a case of fighting, for me. I'm not a particulary heroic type.
However, I once beat a retreat from capitalism only to discover that I never really got away. If I've learnt anything from that, it's that unless we confront it and change the way we think, there will never be any relief from this incessant scramble for more.
Succinctly put, I agree.
While I agree in principal, I have no faith that we can effectively confront and change the way humans think, or more correctly - react.
My considered opinion is that we, as a species, do not have the capacity to look sufficiently forward and do the necessary planning to avert disaster. INDIVIDUALS can and do, but as a group we fail. This is the root of my pessimism.
One simple example. I am going on 60. The Israeli/Palestinian fight has been going on my entire life and is now no closer to resolution than ever. I think that conflict is simple compared to the changes that are required to make a sustainable worldwide habitat.
Thus I have lost the will to "confront" for I see no hope of "change."
Just my position. I respect other views.
The study showed that energy use has generally outpaced population growth over the last few hundred years. Each generation has thus produced more energy per person than its predecessor, the study reported, even as the population has climbed from about 500 million to more than 7 billion in the 450 years analyzed by the authors.
This increasing per capita energy supply has also hiked up Earth's carrying capacity - the number of people it can sustain at equilibrium - and allowed the population to grow at an ever-faster, or exponential, rate.
"Broadly speaking, no one's really (quantified) this," said DeLong, assistant professor of biological sciences. "But it was important, because there are studies going back decades that assume this kind of positive feedback loop: We grow, we expand our capacity to extract energy, and then we grow some more."
However, DeLong and colleague Oskar Burger also found that this dynamic has shifted in the decades following 1963, when the world's population was growing faster than ever before or since.
During the subsequent half-century, the ratio between energy increases and population growth has narrowed, with the former now aligning more closely to the latter. A 1:1 ratio would theoretically limit the planet's population to a linear rather than exponential growth.
"I do think this should challenge our assumptions about future population growth," DeLong said. "The study supports conventional wisdom to a degree, but it also reminds us that (abundant energy) is maybe not something that we can count on indefinitely.
"Our study sort of plays into a deep cultural philosophy that we have the creativity and ability to solve whatever problem comes our way. The evidence shows that, from an energy point of view, we've done that a lot. But maybe that's not a guarantee."
While analyzing the data, the researchers also spotted unexpected fluctuations in the population-energy relationship at certain points in history. After closer scrutiny, they discovered that per capita energy yields fluctuated during times of socio-economic and environmental upheaval: the Little Ice Age, the Industrial Revolution, World War I and II, the oil crises of the 1970s.
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