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Nature is neither kind nor is it gentle. Why should humans subjugate their nature to be something they are not?

Cog wrote:Nature is neither kind nor is it gentle. Why should humans subjugate their nature to be something they are not?

Nature has no emotions. Humans do. Don't you think it is time we channeled more our good ones rather than our bad ones?

Cog wrote:Nature is neither kind nor is it gentle. Why should humans subjugate their nature to be something they are not?

In order to be.


That’s true but a bit snarky. A more thoughtful answer would be .... Not to subjugate what we are but to adjust our behaviors. One could ask why we require adolescents to sujlbjugate their wild and reckless behavior to societies norms. It’s kinda like that. Because if we don’t we will get spanked or worse.

All of which does not directly deal strictly with the problem of our overshoot of our environmental capacity and in particular our overpopulation. It is just that our societal ills overlap with this more fundamental overshoot status

Ms. Newfie here:

Nature on the whole is not gentle, but it has gentle sides, especially in social animals. The very beginning of mammals encompasses an artificially gentle environment (the womb) to protect the complicated fetus, and the cognitive elites amongst animals are socially cooperative. “The Social Conquet of Earth” makes the point how at least intra-group cooperation fosters evolutionary advantages in biological systems. It even seems that some advanced, self-learning robots develop rudimentary cooperative (gentle) behavior because it makes their environment more predictable which makes their learning easier. (Ein Waelsung kuendet Dir das)

Nice hearing from you Mrs. Newf haha. And I may add that a united cooperative humanity (Or at least communities) stands a better chance of heading off some of the worse consequences of our overshoot as well as reconfiguring in a harmonious manner in the aftermath of the associated great upheavals

Good points, Mrs. N. and nice to hear you chime in.

I would only add that 'nature' has been quite kind and even gentle compared to what she will unleash in the next hundred years. And after that it gets worse!

If the civilization is not sustainable then the number of humans does not matter. Agriculture currently is not sustainable because the topsoil is being lost ca 100 times quicker than it forms. Therefore we can say that the sustainable number of people is ca 7bln/100=70mln if we want to continue the agriculture as it is today.
Agriculture started the overpopulation snowball and the topsoil degradations will finish it.

Newfie wrote:Ms. Newfie here:

Nature on the whole is not gentle, but it has gentle sides, especially in social animals. The very beginning of mammals encompasses an artificially gentle environment (the womb) to protect the complicated fetus, and the cognitive elites amongst animals are socially cooperative. “The Social Conquet of Earth” makes the point how at least intra-group cooperation fosters evolutionary advantages in biological systems. It even seems that some advanced, self-learning robots develop rudimentary cooperative (gentle) behavior because it makes their environment more predictable which makes their learning easier. (Ein Waelsung kuendet Dir das)

Here is my prediction regarding this:

The overwhelming majority of the worlds population will fall victim to populists who will appeal to the more primitive reflex and defensive position of hording for your In Group as you then demonize those of your Out Group. This will be the reflex position of dealing with the upcoming constraints. This will be the majority position. This will create a huge spiritual vacuum out of which spiritual movements will emerge, either as modifications of existing religions or the birth of new ones that will preserve higher altruistic and cooperative social arrangements. Like Jesus and the early christians they will be persecuted but eventually they will prevail.

In times of human overshoot the extremes of the profane and sacred become powerful movements, there wont be much mediocrity, allot of volatility. Necessary actually to eventually emerge with a set of values in sharing our planet in a balanced way with other life forms and with each other.

Preserving altruism will be fringe elements initially that will eventually persevere but the overwhelming thrust of humanity in the short to mid term will play a violent game of ethnic and tribal musical chairs as constraints tighten.

What the past reveals are cycles of the sacred and the profane.

“What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

After that, they become ambitious again.

ralfy wrote:After that, they become ambitious again.

Si Ralfy, humans are like hamsters running in circles forever confined to these cycles?

Perhaps, after 100,000 years of evolution on an overcrowded Earth, our primate desires to have the comforting smell of extended family around us, and to control territory, will be moderated.

But until that happens, the way one overcomes those instincts is through education. Implying that those that have the luxury of spare time to learn and more than enough stuff to consume are the only ones who will bother to control our numbers. It's really a tragedy of enormous proportions.

The ideal number of humans is the number we have currently. The planet, and our ability to exploit those planetary resources, will let us know if the current number is no longer ideal.

It takes systems in order for however many billions of people there are to thrive on earth. Some of those systems are discovered, such as by economics, and some are imposed, such as by tradition. When we talk about what is the ideal number of people what you are really talking about is having a fit for a particular set of systems.

Our systems can improve. What could they improve into? Is it possible for us, as a species, to develop enough similar manners within all of our subsets of nations, tribes and families of approaching how we manage our systems to say that we have become self-aware on some greater level, as a collective?

Do the members need to know they are part of it in order for such a self-aware thing to function? All it really needs is a code to operate by which is at once complex enough to handle the unknown and within which there remains some form of choice as to direction. The purpose of such a thing would be to operate as an extension of that which produces it, as that can be determined according to its structure. Special cases will always dovetail into a kind of event horizon of impossibility without constant reference to how they reflect off of some norm.

That is to say, all arguments of this type are arguments of the individual vs. society. We want there to be fewer people because, then we can more easily understand the challenge that others present us with when we consider our own natures.The more people, the more chance of meeting those who we have to admit do exist, but can't reconcile with our world view. The form of management which could deal with this would achieve some platform upon which dialogue can take place. It would provide a construct upon which any party could arrive at understanding, like how the Constitution moderates the United States, but with a much shorter leash. I don't know, perhaps this sort of self-awareness is possible?

No one understands a single sentence of what you have posted evilgenius. I feel I'm dumber for even trying to comprehend it.

Cog wrote:No one understands a single sentence of what you have posted evilgenius. I feel I'm dumber for even trying to comprehend it.

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

I'm trying to ask if anyone thinks that self-awareness on the level of man as a species is possible? If so, does it rely upon the number of people alive at any one time? Do we need a certain number of people to reach that sort of consciousness, or is it more dependent upon the flow of information, which can continue under lower population levels? These times, with their hardships and reductions upon the individual due to juxtaposition with a society of such great population numbers, can't help but hone a working definition of what an individual is. They seem like such trying times, but they also produce a center, which may only loosely describe any one person. The concept of that center is useful for many things beyond that, however.

Cog wrote:The ideal number of humans is the number we have currently. The planet, and our ability to exploit those planetary resources, will let us know if the current number is no longer ideal.

What 'is' is and what 'will be' will be.

I've peaked into the future and I still get 'ZERO'

Yes, we could have had a planetary society as evilgenius implies, but I don't think so.

Cog wrote:The ideal number of humans is the number we have currently. The planet, and our ability to exploit those planetary resources, will let us know if the current number is no longer ideal.

The planet is talking quite strongly, are you listening?

Can you “know” if you do not listen?