Splitting this off from another thread which was getting OT.
The central supposition is that if all humanity were reduced to 10% of it's current population (evenly) that this would be a good thing for the long term survival of humankind. There are some who disagree with this statement, and we'll let them explain their positions. Brace yourself for doomsday and end of the world scenarios.
Eh, the world will be fine it's only us people that will suffer if anything goes bad.
Honestly I am fine with us suffering in the world we create rather than kill off 90% of people (that will likely do very little in grand scheme of things). If we all suffocate in 500 years then so be it. If we starve because too much food is grown that cannot be consumed then so be it. Let everyone live in the world they created until we die. That is how things go for any creature that destroys it's own habitat.
However if you really want 90% of people killed I think the person making the decision must also sacrifice himself and anyone doing the killing must accept that fate as well.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: How would the complete collapse of our economy and infrastructure be a good thing?
Are you volunteering yourself and all your friends and family to be part of the cull?
Well its only a good thing if you know how to completely survive sustainably.
The fun part will probably happen when people that dont know how to survive try to group up together.
Edit: Also every unattended oil carrier floating about and nuclear power plants.
Edit2: Actually it entirely depends on the circumstances of the removal. sudden death would be pretty chaotic. but if it was a planet wide exodice where its all planned and those staying knew about it and prepared, then they probably would probably have a decent chance at surviving, assuming they all know how to do basic survival things like farming and things.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Are you volunteering yourself and all your friends and family to be part of the cull?
Yup. and all yours too.
the supposition is that everyone gets a flat 1 in 10 worldwide.
As far as a collapse, yes, the financial markets would be screwed. And, since infrastructure has been an interesting part of the debate, yes, a large portion of it would no longer be needed, and would thus no longer be maintained.
Edit: Also every unattended oil carrier floating about and nuclear power plants.
Edit2: Actually it entirely depends on the circumstances of the removal. sudden death would be pretty chaotic. but if it was a planet wide exodice where its all planned and those staying knew about it and prepared, then they probably would probably have a decent chance at surviving, assuming they all know how to do basic survival things like farming and things.
Yeah, the idea was that suddenly, 90% of humanity is gone. Poof.
Oil carriers would be a problem, but most nukes would default to their fail-safes. At least, in the west. I have no idea if Russian reactors shut down automatically if no one is at the helm.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Are you volunteering yourself and all your friends and family to be part of the cull?
Yup. and all yours too.
the supposition is that everyone gets a flat 1 in 10 worldwide.
As far as a collapse, yes, the financial markets would be screwed. And, since infrastructure has been an interesting part of the debate, yes, a large portion of it would no longer be needed, and would thus no longer be maintained.
Would the 10% be spread out all over the world or all together from the start in a reasonable location?
Yeah, the idea was that suddenly, 90% of humanity is gone. Poof.
Oil carriers would be a problem, but most nukes would default to their fail-safes. At least, in the west. I have no idea if Russian reactors shut down automatically if no one is at the helm.
Then im assuming 10% split around the world.
First few years should be fine as there will be plenty of food and what not.
Guns wont be an issue as there should be a wide availability all over the place for hunting and defending.
i expect small war mongering tribes since this is starting from chaos. since no one knows wtf is going on. they will defend what they have rather than be open depending on what personally takes over any groups first.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Are you volunteering yourself and all your friends and family to be part of the cull?
Yup. and all yours too.
the supposition is that everyone gets a flat 1 in 10 worldwide.
As far as a collapse, yes, the financial markets would be screwed. And, since infrastructure has been an interesting part of the debate, yes, a large portion of it would no longer be needed, and would thus no longer be maintained.
You know what? If you say this is a good thing, you are pretty much evil. Volunteering someone else's family to die? I hope your friends and coworkers in real life find out exactly the kind of person you are.
You know what? If you say this is a good thing, you are pretty much evil. Volunteering someone else's family to die? I hope your friends and coworkers in real life find out exactly the kind of person you are.
They already know. I do, after all, spend all day working in a government facility built to deal with exactly this sort of thing happening, in real life. So, yes, the end of the world in it's many permutations is a common subject around the water cooler and dinner table. Good and evil do not come into it. Just 'does this leave us better or worse off overall'?
I even get paid to think about it, and try to come up with ways to save your government paperwork (not you) from it.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Are you volunteering yourself and all your friends and family to be part of the cull?
Yup. and all yours too.
the supposition is that everyone gets a flat 1 in 10 worldwide.
As far as a collapse, yes, the financial markets would be screwed. And, since infrastructure has been an interesting part of the debate, yes, a large portion of it would no longer be needed, and would thus no longer be maintained.
You know what? If you say this is a good thing, you are pretty much evil. Volunteering someone else's family to die? I hope your friends and coworkers in real life find out exactly the kind of person you are.
Dude, it is hypothetical. If in real life you think this guy could stand and internationally broadcast his proposal for what I think would qualify as a near mass extinction then I think you greatly over estimate how good he thinks this idea truly is. Chances are he merely thinks it's a good idea because it is hypothetical and he is removed from the situation. Very few people could really get an idea like this out there without chickening out.
BaronIveagh wrote: Splitting this off from another thread which was getting OT.
The central supposition is that if all humanity were reduced to 10% of it's current population (evenly) that this would be a good thing for the long term survival of humankind. There are some who disagree with this statement, and we'll let them explain their positions. Brace yourself for doomsday and end of the world scenarios.
Not so good for the people being "reduced", I imagine.
How do you propose to enact this master plan? Drawing straws? Names from a hat? A lottery? How would we pick the few lucky fethers who get to live?
Oh, and what happens when the 90% of the worlds population being "reduced" inevitably resists?
I'm with Stephen Hawking. I posit that the best chance for humanity's long term survival lies in leaving our solar system and exploring the universe, gaining access to the INFINITE resources and worlds that are out there. Hell, just last week the NASA Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of a "near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun very similar to our star."
Now, there is a rational case for population control and sustainable resource management, but deliberately reducing the human gene pool to 10% just strikes me as bat gak insane. And Stalinist.
BaronIveagh wrote: Splitting this off from another thread which was getting OT.
The central supposition is that if all humanity were reduced to 10% of it's current population (evenly) that this would be a good thing for the long term survival of humankind. There are some who disagree with this statement, and we'll let them explain their positions. Brace yourself for doomsday and end of the world scenarios.
Not so good for the people being "reduced", I imagine.
How do you propose to enact this master plan? Drawing straws? Names from a hat? A lottery? How would we pick the few lucky fethers who get to live?
Oh, and what happens when the 90% of the worlds population being "reduced" inevitably resists?
I'm with Stephen Hawking. I posit that the best chance for humanity's long term survival lies in leaving our solar system and exploring the universe, gaining access to the INFINITE resources and worlds that are out there. Hell, just last week the NASA Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of a "near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun very similar to our star."
Deliberately reducing the human gene pool to 10% just strikes me as bat gak insane.
We also have the the much easier to obtain goal of becoming subterranean (the one where we live under ground and above).
We can create 2 societies, the mole people below and the normal people above. With this proposed method we can fit a lot more people on earth. The moles can live off people, mushrooms and raid the surfaces. The surface people will farm and protect their live stock from the mole people.
A system where we rely on each other. Moles mine for goods and trade for surface goods. The raiding is to ensure no one group can withhold resources from the other. Eventually humans will become two different types, the highly adapted mole people, and the surface people will become whatever we look like in the future.
Not so good for the people being "reduced", I imagine.
How do you propose to enact this master plan? Drawing straws? Names from a hat? A lottery? How would we pick the few lucky fethers who get to live?
Grey Goo scenario would be the fairest. Infect the population with some sort of nano machine and then transmit the activation signal. Everyone rolls the dice and either instantly turns to a puddle of water and grey dust, or doesn't.
I'm with Stephen Hawking. I posit that the best chance for humanity's long term survival lies in leaving our solar system and exploring the universe, gaining access to the INFINITE resources and worlds that are out there. Hell, just last week the NASA Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of a "near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun very similar to our star."
You have to get there first. And have technology in place to actually move resources up and down the gravity well cheaply. I don't think humanity has enough time left to develop the required technologies without things far nastier than 90% of everyone dying happening to humanity in general.
We also have the the much easier to obtain goal of becoming subterranean (the one where we live under ground and above).
We can create 2 societies, the mole people below and the normal people above. With this proposed method we can fit a lot more people on earth. The moles can live off people, mushrooms and raid the surfaces. The surface people will farm and protect their live stock from the mole people.
A system where we rely on each other. Moles mine for goods and trade for surface goods. The raiding is to ensure no one group can withhold resources from the other. Eventually humans will become two different types, the highly adapted mole people, and the surface people will become whatever we look like in the future.
This sounds cheaper and more exciting than space.
HG Wells is on the line, his lawyers want to talk to you..
Now, there is a rational case for population control and sustainable resource management, but deliberately reducing the human gene pool to 10% just strikes me as bat gak insane. And Stalinist.
Except Stalin wasn't practicing population control, he was slaughtering farmers because he didn't like them.
10% of current is the lowest you can, in theory, go, while still maintaining industrial civilization. The idea being to give humanity max breathing space while not excessively hampering forward technological development.
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Breotan wrote: There isn't a single doomsday prediction that has ever come true.
And yet we spend billions, every year, just in case.
The tech is there, it's just a matter of implementing it. I think since society is focused more on greed and personal profit rather than the betterment of the whole, it would likely take a doomsday level scenario to get it going.
I say the best way to go about this for all involved parties is through the gradual depopulation. Start shipping people off world to colonies. Start with orbital elevator to get people and material off the surface. Costruct Island-2 or Island-3 type habitats and begin sending people to them. From there you can begin setting up lunar and Martian habitats and keep going. There's also the chance that scientific communities in these colonies could produce new breakthroughs in science and technology that could speed up the process.
Barzam wrote: The tech is there, it's just a matter of implementing it. I think since society is focused more on greed and personal profit rather than the betterment of the whole, it would likely take a doomsday level scenario to get it going.
I say the best way to go about this for all involved parties is through the gradual depopulation. Start shipping people off world to colonies. Start with orbital elevator to get people and material off the surface. Costruct Island-2 or Island-3 type habitats and begin sending people to them. From there you can begin setting up lunar and Martian habitats and keep going. There's also the chance that scientific communities in these colonies could produce new breakthroughs in science and technology that could speed up the process.
A permanent Lunar base is possible with today's technology. I expect I'll see at least a temporary base on Mars within my lifetime (e.g. by 2100).
shasolenzabi wrote: The easy and simple things that can be done now is for people to voluntarily stop breeding.
Of course then you still have the religious nutters doing that "Be fruitful and multiply nonsense which is what got us here in the first place.
I have a host of health issues, I decided not to inflict that on any offspring by not having any.
What?
Hahaha.
I mean, most people have kids because it is in their nature to do so... Most people who do not have kids are usually not having them because they are unable to. Not because of religion. I tip my fedora to you sir!
Something interesting to note: I am the only one out of my group of friends who would not be dead if we where all born naturally. All my friends had complications at birth that would have resulted in death apparently. The real problem with over population? Medical Science. So lets all stop practicing that eh? (see how dumb that sounds?).
When we run out of living space on the ocean floor then I will sweat it..............wait.............We be dead.......
Solar Plasma Flares will kill us all anyway.
How would you spend your last 12 hours if your on the side of Earth that would get nailed eh
Yes a reduction of our numbers by 90% would help the planet, it will a,lso benefit us in the longer term.
I am assuming this cull happens evenly, rather than denuding some populations while leaving others intact.
best way to achieve this is not by killing anyone, a virus causing widespread, but not total sterility is the best choice, as it can spread amonst the human population and as it kills nobody and is dispersed into the bulk of humanity before it is wodely noticed.
This will however mean the 90% drop in population is over a period of time.
Now, there is a rational case for population control and sustainable resource management, but deliberately reducing the human gene pool to 10% just strikes me as bat gak insane. And Stalinist.
Except Stalin wasn't practicing population control, he was slaughtering farmers because he didn't like them.
10% of current is the lowest you can, in theory, go, while still maintaining industrial civilization. The idea being to give humanity max breathing space while not excessively hampering forward technological development.
Randomly selecting 90% of human population would excessively hamper forward technological development. You could random kill every scientist and educator. Or more likely with 90% dead and societial priorities completely changing, they would simply leave their old life in favor of attempting to survive in a world that is rapidly becoming more hostile to their survival.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: So this discussion is all just grim masturbatory material for would-be dooms day preppers?
Dear Diary: Today I learned about a new fetish on DakkaDakka.
No! It's really gonna happen at the end of next week! Didn't you get the...wait a minute, you aren't in the 10%, so you wouldn't have gotten the instruction book for after. Never mind, just get along with the rest of your...life.
I can't comprehend how someone could possibly think killing 90% of all humans is a good idea. Seriously, what went wrong in your development ?
Unless of course that person isn't actually a person at all, but an infiltrated alien spy and this is all part of "the plan".
Eliminating 90% of the population is a mere short-term solution. The best way to guarantee the continued existence of multicellular life is to eliminate 100% of the human race.
This topic is fething flying rodent gak. I mean, even ignoring the fairly significant moral issues with killing more than 5 billion people, the actual logic underpinning it is gibberish. In fact, even ignoring the unstated and highly dubious assumptions about sustainability, and even ignoring that resource use is driven more by living standards than population numbers, it's still complete and utter gibberish.
The thing about having 7 billion people is that if gak goes bad and that population proves unsustainable, then it will reduce to a sustainable level by itself. You don't have to pre-empt that by killing people - if it did ever happen the problem would sort itself out.
Effectively the premise in the OP is that we have to kill people now to prevent people possibly dying later. It's fething nuts.
sebster wrote: This topic is fething flying rodent gak. I mean, even ignoring the fairly significant moral issues with killing more than 5 billion people, the actual logic underpinning it is gibberish. In fact, even ignoring the unstated and highly dubious assumptions about sustainability, and even ignoring that resource use is driven more by living standards than population numbers, it's still complete and utter gibberish.
The thing about having 7 billion people is that if gak goes bad and that population proves unsustainable, then it will reduce to a sustainable level by itself. You don't have to pre-empt that by killing people - if it did ever happen the problem would sort itself out.
Effectively the premise in the OP is that we have to kill people now to prevent people possibly dying later. It's fething nuts.
Presumably, the rationale behind this thought experiment is a controlled depopulation event would be fair, 9 out of ten across the board. As opposed to what would happen if were to happen "by itself"; Africa, South America and SE Asia would take the brunt of the brutality and mass starvation while N America and W Europe would continue relatively unscathed.
feeder wrote: Presumably, the rationale behind this thought experiment is a controlled depopulation event would be fair, 9 out of ten across the board. As opposed to what would happen if were to happen "by itself"; Africa, South America and SE Asia would take the brunt of the brutality and mass starvation while N America and W Europe would continue relatively unscathed.
sebster wrote: This topic is fething flying rodent gak. I mean, even ignoring the fairly significant moral issues with killing more than 5 billion people, the actual logic underpinning it is gibberish. In fact, even ignoring the unstated and highly dubious assumptions about sustainability, and even ignoring that resource use is driven more by living standards than population numbers, it's still complete and utter gibberish.
The thing about having 7 billion people is that if gak goes bad and that population proves unsustainable, then it will reduce to a sustainable level by itself. You don't have to pre-empt that by killing people - if it did ever happen the problem would sort itself out.
Effectively the premise in the OP is that we have to kill people now to prevent people possibly dying later. It's fething nuts.
In Mass Effect 3 they called it true artistic vision.
Guys, stop and think about it for a second: resources are finite. Even a modest colonization of this solar system would require massive amounts of resources with very little initial return on the investment (look at the financial ruin Jamestown and most New England colonies wrought on their investors).
Resources will be scarce enough in the next two to three generations that you will see wars for more resources than just oil. As things get worse, expect some dim bulb to decide that releasing bioweapons on their neighbors is a good idea, as they have the lowest resource consumption for highest effect, and tend not to destroy the resources you're coveting.
At which point the gak really hits the fan.
A few of you have mentioned plagues, and the Black Death in particular. It's interesting to note that most plagues have not really set civilization back much, (notice that culture, technology, and science continued to advance throughout the Black Death, despite it's depopulating effect on Europe.)
Wars, however, do not do much to reduce population. There's almost always a spike in births following a war.
BaronIveagh wrote: Guys, stop and think about it for a second: resources are finite. Even a modest colonization of this solar system would require massive amounts of resources with very little initial return on the investment (look at the financial ruin Jamestown and most New England colonies wrought on their investors).
Resources will be scarce enough in the next two to three generations that you will see wars for more resources than just oil. As things get worse, expect some dim bulb to decide that releasing bioweapons on their neighbors is a good idea, as they have the lowest resource consumption for highest effect, and tend not to destroy the resources you're coveting.
At which point the gak really hits the fan.
A few of you have mentioned plagues, and the Black Death in particular. It's interesting to note that most plagues have not really set civilization back much, (notice that culture, technology, and science continued to advance throughout the Black Death, despite it's depopulating effect on Europe.)
Wars, however, do not do much to reduce population. There's almost always a spike in births following a war.
sebster wrote: This topic is fething flying rodent gak. I mean, even ignoring the fairly significant moral issues with killing more than 5 billion people, the actual logic underpinning it is gibberish. In fact, even ignoring the unstated and highly dubious assumptions about sustainability, and even ignoring that resource use is driven more by living standards than population numbers, it's still complete and utter gibberish.
The thing about having 7 billion people is that if gak goes bad and that population proves unsustainable, then it will reduce to a sustainable level by itself. You don't have to pre-empt that by killing people - if it did ever happen the problem would sort itself out.
Effectively the premise in the OP is that we have to kill people now to prevent people possibly dying later. It's fething nuts.
Presumably, the rationale behind this thought experiment is a controlled depopulation event would be fair, 9 out of ten across the board. As opposed to what would happen if were to happen "by itself"; Africa, South America and SE Asia would take the brunt of the brutality and mass starvation while N America and W Europe would continue relatively unscathed.
Isn't that called 'natural selection'? Africa, South America and SE Asia contain the vast majority of the world's population, so they would have to take the brunt regardless. This idea is still completely idiotic. Why not fight over something worthwile, like chocolate?
Seeing how much water there is on the planet, that seems unlikely.
If we truly do start running out of water it would seem hard for an army that lacks water to be able to function anyway. I mean, armies in the past have had trouble keeping their men supplied with water, surely that will be harder when water is rare enough to mobalize armies for.
Seeing how much water there is on the planet, that seems unlikely.
If we truly do start running out of water it would seem hard for an army that lacks water to be able to function anyway. I mean, armies in the past have had trouble keeping their men supplied with water, surely that will be harder when water is rare enough to mobalize armies for.
Yeah, you go march around looking for water, I'll camp my army right next to the sea and build a desalination plant.
Seeing how much water there is on the planet, that seems unlikely.
Drinkable water, however, is a resource people will fight for. And already are doing.
They are some that see this as the tipping point in lack of resources leading to unrest.
Google it. Plenty of articles. India is doing irreversible damage to the availability/quality of its drinking water. China faces a similar issue and change could be seen as an infringement on neighbouring countries.
I mean, we have an entire continent made of drinkable water. There is serious concern that the rapidly increasing destruction of said continent will lead to ocean desalinization, which would have a devastating effect on ocean life (and thus most life surrounding it).
The issue, as with most things, isn't amount, but rather transportation. Getting it where it needs to be.
streamdragon wrote: I mean, we have an entire continent made of drinkable water. There is serious concern that the rapidly increasing destruction of said continent will lead to ocean desalinization, which would have a devastating effect on ocean life (and thus most life surrounding it).
The issue, as with most things, isn't amount, but rather transportation. Getting it where it needs to be.
How would you get desalination in the ocean?? The way tidal flows work, the current model that geologists use shows that a decrease in water flowing to the sea/ocean has the direct result of salt water being "sucked" into the river system (as in, salt water goes in, not gets pushed further out)
streamdragon wrote: I mean, we have an entire continent made of drinkable water. There is serious concern that the rapidly increasing destruction of said continent will lead to ocean desalinization, which would have a devastating effect on ocean life (and thus most life surrounding it).
The issue, as with most things, isn't amount, but rather transportation. Getting it where it needs to be.
How would you get desalination in the ocean?? The way tidal flows work, the current model that geologists use shows that a decrease in water flowing to the sea/ocean has the direct result of salt water being "sucked" into the river system (as in, salt water goes in, not gets pushed further out)
Well, melting ice caps would pretty much be the opposite of "a decrease in water flowing to the sea/ocean".
And food. Arable land is at a premium in some places atm. While right now we have surplus production world wide, the ability to produce food is finite.
Skinnereal wrote: Look at what happened after the 'flu epidemic or black plague.
A huge swathe of the population dies, and society almost collapses, causing more death.
Actually, if i recall correctly, in England is was the workers demanding higher pay following the black death that caused more death.
Can you please link the "demands of higher pay caused further death" source?
Yes Urban laborers got paid more and laws against it failed to do anything, but I have never heard of it causing more death? If anything that was a bonus for us as time went on. Even peasants had a boost in prosperity, but causing more death?
Swastakowey wrote: Can you please link the "demands of higher pay caused further death" source?
Yes Urban laborers got paid more and laws against it failed to do anything, but I have never heard of it causing more death? If anything that was a bonus for us as time went on. Even peasants had a boost in prosperity, but causing more death?
BaronIveagh wrote: Guys, stop and think about it for a second: resources are finite. Even a modest colonization of this solar system would require massive amounts of resources with very little initial return on the investment (look at the financial ruin Jamestown and most New England colonies wrought on their investors).
Resources will be scarce enough in the next two to three generations that you will see wars for more resources than just oil. As things get worse, expect some dim bulb to decide that releasing bioweapons on their neighbors is a good idea, as they have the lowest resource consumption for highest effect, and tend not to destroy the resources you're coveting.
At which point the gak really hits the fan.
A few of you have mentioned plagues, and the Black Death in particular. It's interesting to note that most plagues have not really set civilization back much, (notice that culture, technology, and science continued to advance throughout the Black Death, despite it's depopulating effect on Europe.)
Wars, however, do not do much to reduce population. There's almost always a spike in births following a war.
I'm with sebster on this... this is no different than discussing 'what we would do during the Zombie Apocalyspe'.
Also... you're always leaving out the impact of any future advances in technologies and techniques.
Many believe that we'll have a sustainable fusion reactor in our lifetime.
We would simply repopulate... like a perfect circle we would start over and work are selves to the same position we are in now literally we would jump from the 20th century to 1000 BC... we would essentially devolve our selves because there would be no one running all our modern tech... electricity would go first.... then we would slowly turn stupid. Then slowly humans crawl back to square one and 2000-3000 years later someone makes a thread about killing off 90 percent of the population would save humanity...
Only way humanity will survive is if we move from earth and either A: teraform planets B: find other resources in the galaxy.
Personally I think we will be invaders and go to other planets and kill off the occupants on that planet and take what we want... kinda of ironic considering every alien movie is us being invaded and having our planets resources stolen from us...
Seeing how much water there is on the planet, that seems unlikely.
Only 3% of the worlds' water is fresh water, the rest is brackish, dirty, or salt water.
Now dirty/brackish water can be filtered, but the filtration systems are not cheap, and that nasty water is in poor countries who will be hard pressed to pay for enough of those filter/purifiers.
Salt water is a lot of issues with de-salinization. The by-product of de-salinization is potent salts laden with chems and heavy metals that are also not safe to dispose of at such high concentrations, so sure, you solve the one problem of water to drink, but now where to dispose pf the waste materials from the process?
Of that 3% we use, some is shared not for drinking, but also laundry, dishwashing, waste, and industrial use, again, better purification and filtration will be needed to re-use some of that gray water, but many companies hate spending money on such measures and prefer the low fines for polluting rather than pay for something that stops the polluting.
Water is a necessity, not a commodity, but some corporations are already making it so that instead of Tap water, they make you pay 1-2dollars for the tap water they bottled. Nice scam huh?
Swastakowey wrote: Can you please link the "demands of higher pay caused further death" source?
Yes Urban laborers got paid more and laws against it failed to do anything, but I have never heard of it causing more death? If anything that was a bonus for us as time went on. Even peasants had a boost in prosperity, but causing more death?
The law Statute of Laborers was the cause not the peasants asking for more money. Unless you are blaming peasants for wanting fair payments or are in support the government trying to keep those in power in power? We can all agree that the system back then was pretty unfair. They still took advantage of the economic situation, it was just illegal. But blaming peasants for simply wanting their fair share of the new situation legally is hardly "deh dimunded moaw pay so moaw peepol dieeed, filthy peesants".
Also the conflict killed a mere few thousand, black plague killed what? between 100 million and 430 million roughly? Thats more than the world wars. I bet more people died of crime during the plague than that rebellion killed.
It is a huge stretch to say that peasants demanding more pay furthered the deaths of the black plague, when in reality after 30 years of capped pay and capped movement peasants got sick of it and rose up. While the law was technically incredibly hard to enforce in the new situation, I imagine many peasants found themselves unable to rise further due to those laws.
Their rebellion, while had huge impacts on society, had very little impact on the death toll.
Seeing how much water there is on the planet, that seems unlikely.
Only 3% of the worlds' water is fresh water, the rest is brackish, dirty, or salt water.
Now dirty/brackish water can be filtered, but the filtration systems are not cheap, and that nasty water is in poor countries who will be hard pressed to pay for enough of those filter/purifiers.
Salt water is a lot of issues with de-salinization. The by-product of de-salinization is potent salts laden with chems and heavy metals that are also not safe to dispose of at such high concentrations, so sure, you solve the one problem of water to drink, but now where to dispose pf the waste materials from the process?
Of that 3% we use, some is shared not for drinking, but also laundry, dishwashing, waste, and industrial use, again, better purification and filtration will be needed to re-use some of that gray water, but many companies hate spending money on such measures and prefer the low fines for polluting rather than pay for something that stops the polluting.
Water is a necessity, not a commodity, but some corporations are already making it so that instead of Tap water, they make you pay 1-2dollars for the tap water they bottled. Nice scam huh?
We also have this nifty natural desalination system called rain. It is free. It rains a lot here, so I don't think we are ever going to run out. Of course, it sucks when you live in a place where it doesn't rain. But then you can always use a fire and a few bottles to make a makeshift desalination thingy.
Besides, most of the world is made up of water, so 3% of the world amount of water is still a HUGE amount of water. Like more water than we could ever possibly drink amount of water. Like so often, the issue is not that the amount is insufficient, but rather that it is distributed unequally. Just like food and wealth. Come to think of it, the distribution pattern for all three (wealth, arable land, amount of water) is exactly the same.
Iron_Captain wrote: Like more water than we could ever possibly drink amount of water.
California is majorly proving that sentiment wrong. Areas where agriculture is the main industry are seeing soil subsidence at around 1 foot per year. The aquifers that are providing that water, filled up over the course of 10k-100k years. "We" are draining it far, far faster than it can possibly be replaced, even with the expected El Nino weather coming this winter.
Seeing how much water there is on the planet, that seems unlikely.
Salt water is a lot of issues with de-salinization. The by-product of de-salinization is potent salts laden with chems and heavy metals that are also not safe to dispose of at such high concentrations, so sure, you solve the one problem of water to drink, but now where to dispose pf the waste materials from the process?
It can be dumped right back in the ocean. It will of course have some negative effects on the local area, but really its little different from how all freshwater is generated. The ocean evaporates, leaving these chemicals behind, and the water travels inland till it condenses as rain and snow. Desalination is just cutting out the middleman.
Plus many of those heavy metals are actually valuable. Potentially enough to make it a viable industry to sift them out of the salt.
Water is only technically a limited resource, and practically speaking its only limited by it being where you want it to be or not.
I think a good idea would be to have a few massive desalination plants, each powered by nuclear reactors, which would also pump the freshwater to where its needed. The toxic sludge can be pumped back into the deep ocean via another pipeline, naturally the dump site would be chosen for minimal environmental impact. Any excess water would be diverted into aquifers.
The corporations tried to lay claim to rain water even in Bolivia, they got chased out.
Ground water is also in danger as the next go for fossil fuel is fracking, the Big Oil companies desire to frack the world, which then leaks bad stuff into the aquifers, lessening that small % we have to share among 7+billion humans, the animals wild and domesticated, farming also sucks up a lot of water, bottling companies, and areas are in bad shape like said above, California, anywhere the drought hits hard, and more droughts will help dry up that actually tiny 3% we have to stretch between towns, cities, farms, industry, etc.
As the fracking is where ever shale sits, that is the fate they have already done to America, and I have seen the rest of the world shale deposits across the globe, they intend to frack Europe and Asia and Africa, no where is safe from fracking, so that 3% is shrinking more each day.
Glaciers that have melted away means no more melt water that countries relied on, so that 3% is a figure from a documentary on water made a few years ago, I suspect we are more like 2-2.5% fresh water left.
Iron_Captain wrote: Like more water than we could ever possibly drink amount of water.
California is majorly proving that sentiment wrong. Areas where agriculture is the main industry are seeing soil subsidence at around 1 foot per year. The aquifers that are providing that water, filled up over the course of 10k-100k years. "We" are draining it far, far faster than it can possibly be replaced, even with the expected El Nino weather coming this winter.
The problem there are the industries/farming in California.
Frankly, those industries simply got "too big".
Either build a pipeline to transport water... or, these industries move out of state to more irrigated location.
More irrigated areas don't always have the same ideal fertile soil to go with it. Constant rain depletes nutrients. Thats why the Amazon is a terrible place for farming.
The central valley is one big flood plain. Add water and you have the best place to grow food. Its well worth it to move the water.
Seeing how much water there is on the planet, that seems unlikely.
Salt water is a lot of issues with de-salinization. The by-product of de-salinization is potent salts laden with chems and heavy metals that are also not safe to dispose of at such high concentrations, so sure, you solve the one problem of water to drink, but now where to dispose pf the waste materials from the process?
It can be dumped right back in the ocean. It will of course have some negative effects on the local area, but really its little different from how all freshwater is generated. The ocean evaporates, leaving these chemicals behind, and the water travels inland till it condenses as rain and snow. Desalination is just cutting out the middleman.
Plus many of those heavy metals are actually valuable. Potentially enough to make it a viable industry to sift them out of the salt.
Water is only technically a limited resource, and practically speaking its only limited by it being where you want it to be or not.
I think a good idea would be to have a few massive desalination plants, each powered by nuclear reactors, which would also pump the freshwater to where its needed. The toxic sludge can be pumped back into the deep ocean via another pipeline, naturally the dump site would be chosen for minimal environmental impact. Any excess water would be diverted into aquifers.
HUGE difference between how nature desalinates water to industrial grade man-made methods. those salts and chems also get rain to dilute them when nature does it. Aquifers in america are compromised via fracking leaks.
Dumping the salts back into the ocean also has issues, as the oceans are actually in trouble already from many sources of stress, farm waste runoff and other pollution already is causing red tides that destroy oxygen and introduces nerve toxins that causes ocean life die offs, and then dump those undiluted toxins from desalinization off to the deep ocean where they have found there are delicate eco-sub systems down there, no telling what damage that will cause. Oh and more Nuke reactors, unless they are thorium reactors, is not so great either.
The only difference between a Desalination plant and rain is that the rain is spread out over a larger area. And there will still be rain out at sea.
And sure, it can cause harm to some delicate ecosystems down there, but really where should our priorities be? Some little ocean lifeforms which are cool, but ultimately aren't helping us, OR should it be ensuring millions of people have food to eat and water to drink?
And Nuclear Reactors are perfectly safe, and the best form of electrical generation we have.
shasolenzabi wrote: Oh and more Nuke reactors, unless they are thorium reactors, is not so great either.
So much this.
Also, thorium is fine as long as the infrastructure is in place for long term waste. We don't need a repeat of the Yucca Mountain fiasco.
Oh the idea of thorium reactors is breeder reactors which recycle and reinvigorate the thorium for use again, BUT if the stuff is spent, it is inert and harmless once out of the reactor, unlike uranium reactor waste. Thorium was even considered a better candidate for automotive power plants
Grey Templar wrote: The only difference between a Desalination plant and rain is that the rain is spread out over a larger area. And there will still be rain out at sea.
And sure, it can cause harm to some delicate ecosystems down there, but really where should our priorities be? Some little ocean lifeforms which are cool, but ultimately aren't helping us, OR should it be ensuring millions of people have food to eat and water to drink?
And Nuclear Reactors are perfectly safe, and the best form of electrical generation we have.
I have had it from a friend who was an engineer at a plant, those plants only put 30% of their power to the grids, the original reason for Uranium powered reactors was weapon production from the Cold War, newer plants are just copies of those. I would consider the cleaner, safer, and also more long lasting supplies of thorium to make reactors.
My meaning which seems lost is that the oceans, which we get food from is already over stressed, so you push more and the oceans die, we die. 70% of our Oxygen is ocean generated, 70% the rest is plant based. Humans can mass produce via the desal plants more of the materials than nature will handle is what I meant, just look deep into China for a good show of how bad humans can muck up environments, they went full bore industrialization for the world products, they have t import water and food to there,
Also, look at long term not short term, we did not inherit the planet from our ancestors, we are borrowing it from our children
We need water. That is non-negotiable. The ocean is full of water. All water ends up back in the ocean eventually. It does not get used up. The ocean's salinity will only be marginally effected by this.
Grey Templar wrote: We need water. That is non-negotiable. The ocean is full of water. All water ends up back in the ocean eventually. It does not get used up. The ocean's salinity will only be marginally effected by this.
Plus the fact that if we are down to 10% population water usage also drops by 90%.
Either build a pipeline to transport water... or, these industries move out of state to more irrigated location.
If you're talking about piping water in to California, where would you pipe it in from? Oregon and Washington are just as much under drought conditions as Cali is, as is Nevada, Utah, Idaho and even Colorado. The next closest, large aquifer that could supply that water is the High Plains Aquifer.... only that one is supplying all the water for the wheat, corn and other crops that make up all of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and down into northern Texas.
Iron_Captain wrote: Like more water than we could ever possibly drink amount of water.
California is majorly proving that sentiment wrong. Areas where agriculture is the main industry are seeing soil subsidence at around 1 foot per year. The aquifers that are providing that water, filled up over the course of 10k-100k years. "We" are draining it far, far faster than it can possibly be replaced, even with the expected El Nino weather coming this winter.
Aquifers? Have they no rivers in California? Rivers are a pretty much endless source of fresh water. Also, if I recall correctly (hasn't Californian agriculture been discussed before on OT, it seems so familiar), the climate of California is part desert and the rest much like that of Crimea, with hot and dry summers. Not the best place for agriculture. Ideally, you want a place where it rains so often irrigation is not even necessarry. Plenty of such places in the north and east of the US, I would think.
Iron_Captain wrote: Like more water than we could ever possibly drink amount of water.
California is majorly proving that sentiment wrong. Areas where agriculture is the main industry are seeing soil subsidence at around 1 foot per year. The aquifers that are providing that water, filled up over the course of 10k-100k years. "We" are draining it far, far faster than it can possibly be replaced, even with the expected El Nino weather coming this winter.
Aquifers? Have they no rivers in California? Rivers are a pretty much endless source of fresh water. Also, if I recall correctly (hasn't Californian agriculture been discussed before on OT, it seems so familiar), the climate of California is part desert and the rest much like that of Crimea, with hot and dry summers. Not the best place for agriculture. Ideally, you want a place where it rains so often irrigation is not even necessarry. Plenty of such places in the north and east of the US, I would think.
Rivers aren't unlimited. Here in NZ our rivers are shrinking. When I was a child the rivers in my town used to be much deeper and wider. Now, in some places they have been reduced to streams. We have had to enforce taxes on water usage to try limit the amount of water we use, because it is having a noticeable effect. And I am only 21, so it's not like it is taking a long time. Every morning I walk past the river at the reserve I live above and you can see the edges where the river used to flow. Very sad indeed.
I am no expert but in my experience rivers are shrinking, even in the very green land of New Zealand.
Iron_Captain wrote: Like more water than we could ever possibly drink amount of water.
California is majorly proving that sentiment wrong. Areas where agriculture is the main industry are seeing soil subsidence at around 1 foot per year. The aquifers that are providing that water, filled up over the course of 10k-100k years. "We" are draining it far, far faster than it can possibly be replaced, even with the expected El Nino weather coming this winter.
Aquifers? Have they no rivers in California? Rivers are a pretty much endless source of fresh water. Also, if I recall correctly (hasn't Californian agriculture been discussed before on OT, it seems so familiar), the climate of California is part desert and the rest much like that of Crimea, with hot and dry summers. Not the best place for agriculture. Ideally, you want a place where it rains so often irrigation is not even necessarry. Plenty of such places in the north and east of the US, I would think.
And with only 10% of the population left, it would be land for the taking. On the other hand, with that many less people, water needs would be way down everywhere, so it really wouldn't be an issue.
Iron_Captain wrote: Like more water than we could ever possibly drink amount of water.
California is majorly proving that sentiment wrong. Areas where agriculture is the main industry are seeing soil subsidence at around 1 foot per year. The aquifers that are providing that water, filled up over the course of 10k-100k years. "We" are draining it far, far faster than it can possibly be replaced, even with the expected El Nino weather coming this winter.
Aquifers? Have they no rivers in California? Rivers are a pretty much endless source of fresh water. Also, if I recall correctly (hasn't Californian agriculture been discussed before on OT, it seems so familiar), the climate of California is part desert and the rest much like that of Crimea, with hot and dry summers. Not the best place for agriculture. Ideally, you want a place where it rains so often irrigation is not even necessarry. Plenty of such places in the north and east of the US, I would think.
Rivers are only endless when they are fed by snowpack, which is literally nonexistent at the moment.
And as I said before, areas of heavy rainfall are not always the best for agriculture because the rain washes away nutrients. You want an area downstream from where the rainfall occurs, like floodplains(which is what all the central valley pretty much is). You can then use irrigation to give the crops the water they need.
The Amazon gets tons of rainfall a year, yet if you clear away the rainforest you are left with very poor soil because the few nutrients there are locked away in the forest itself. If the forest is removed the nutrients wash away in the next monsoon. You are left with land good for nothing other than grazing cattle.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Its not about saving the planet, its about saving the special privileged Elite 10% who get to live.
Yes, because Jim the garbage man is special and elite because he rolled a 10. The supposition being that the 10% that live are selected in a purely random way.
On future tech: remember, in the 1950's, we were supposed to have already colonized space and had travel to work in flying cars by now? Uncle Frank was absolute convinced that we'd solve the problem with radioactive waste by now and have developed 'clean' atomic weapons that could be fired with man portable artillery and thus make war obsolete. This man was a member of the Manhattan Project, he had some idea how atomic weapons worked.
I hear a lot of denial, and a lot of hoping the problem will go away, but not solutions people. Prove me wrong. Prove to me that we can solve this problem without the intervention of some possibly never existing future tech or a world wide cull of the human population.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Its not about saving the planet, its about saving the special privileged Elite 10% who get to live.
Yes, because Jim the garbage man is special and elite because he rolled a 10. The supposition being that the 10% that live are selected in a purely random way.
On future tech: remember, in the 1950's, we were supposed to have already colonized space and had travel to work in flying cars by now? Uncle Frank was absolute convinced that we'd solve the problem with radioactive waste by now and have developed 'clean' atomic weapons that could be fired with man portable artillery and thus make war obsolete. This man was a member of the Manhattan Project, he had some idea how atomic weapons worked.
I hear a lot of denial, and a lot of hoping the problem will go away, but not solutions people. Prove me wrong. Prove to me that we can solve this problem without the intervention of some possibly never existing future tech or a world wide cull of the human population.
No.
Prove to us that there is a problem. I don't see it.
Frankly, if we ever reach that resource scarcity that you're anticipating... there'll be wars over them. That, in itself, will cull the population a bit. But no where near to 90% of the population.
I'm not really sure what a blanket 90% reduction in human population is supposed to accomplish aside from killing a lot of people.
If it were a *targeted* 90%, where the remainder remained for a reason, you might get some sort of result, but otherwise you'd just kill a lot of people, lost a ton of capabilities, lose a ton of knowledge, and set the human race back decades technologically and perhaps a couple centuries in terms of population size.
The only plus you'd really get is that, should the remaining population be organized and unified, you might be able to demolish parts of the "old world" that grew imperfectly and rebuild it better, but that's a big "if". If it's all going to grow back organically, you're just going to get the same issues.
Rivers aren't unlimited. Here in NZ our rivers are shrinking. When I was a child the rivers in my town used to be much deeper and wider. Now, in some places they have been reduced to streams. We have had to enforce taxes on water usage to try limit the amount of water we use, because it is having a noticeable effect. And I am only 21, so it's not like it is taking a long time. Every morning I walk past the river at the reserve I live above and you can see the edges where the river used to flow. Very sad indeed.
I am no expert but in my experience rivers are shrinking, even in the very green land of New Zealand.
Rivers require a flood cycle to function as they are really supposed to. As they erode the soil during their lifespan, they will change shape, depth and speed, etc.
But in California's case, the majority have been dyked, dammed or otherwise "messed" with. Hell, Mexico is really starting to feel the effects of all the hydroelectric power we've set up on the Colorado River, and it took us some 50 years that we need to occasionally conduct a controlled flood for the health of the natural ecosystem.
I also wouldn't want to be anywhere NEAR Hoover Dam in the years following this hypothetical mass population drop. Once it goes, that'll be a whole lot of issues, probably for a few years on the "downstream" side of things.
Rivers aren't unlimited. Here in NZ our rivers are shrinking. When I was a child the rivers in my town used to be much deeper and wider. Now, in some places they have been reduced to streams. We have had to enforce taxes on water usage to try limit the amount of water we use, because it is having a noticeable effect. And I am only 21, so it's not like it is taking a long time. Every morning I walk past the river at the reserve I live above and you can see the edges where the river used to flow. Very sad indeed.
I am no expert but in my experience rivers are shrinking, even in the very green land of New Zealand.
Rivers require a flood cycle to function as they are really supposed to. As they erode the soil during their lifespan, they will change shape, depth and speed, etc.
But in California's case, the majority have been dyked, dammed or otherwise "messed" with. Hell, Mexico is really starting to feel the effects of all the hydroelectric power we've set up on the Colorado River, and it took us some 50 years that we need to occasionally conduct a controlled flood for the health of the natural ecosystem.
I also wouldn't want to be anywhere NEAR Hoover Dam in the years following this hypothetical mass population drop. Once it goes, that'll be a whole lot of issues, probably for a few years on the "downstream" side of things.
Watching "Life after People" that Dam will last for a couple of centuries before it crumbles. It will supply electricity to whatever is left of the power grid. But once it collapses, it will be flood for the downriver zones.
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote: Its not about saving the planet, its about saving the special privileged Elite 10% who get to live.
Yes, because Jim the garbage man is special and elite because he rolled a 10. The supposition being that the 10% that live are selected in a purely random way.
On future tech: remember, in the 1950's, we were supposed to have already colonized space and had travel to work in flying cars by now? Uncle Frank was absolute convinced that we'd solve the problem with radioactive waste by now and have developed 'clean' atomic weapons that could be fired with man portable artillery and thus make war obsolete. This man was a member of the Manhattan Project, he had some idea how atomic weapons worked.
I hear a lot of denial, and a lot of hoping the problem will go away, but not solutions people. Prove me wrong. Prove to me that we can solve this problem without the intervention of some possibly never existing future tech or a world wide cull of the human population.
Yes because the world's existing Elites will not.use their power, money and influence to guarantee their own place in this lucky 10%.
We do not have to prove anything here. It's on you to prove that your idea can be realistically achieved peacefully. Which it can't...90% of humanity will not meekly submit to extermination, they'll fight you to the death. Survival is in human nature. I would fight you, if you came to me proposing that me and mine should die for the greater good.
Exterminating 90% of the world's population is not a practical solution to world overpopulation, it cannot ever be achieved without a great deal of bloodshed and to seriously suggest it indicates a great deal of misanthropy on your part.
Scrabb wrote: OP, posters do not need to demonstrate a sustainable human population to dismiss you.
You need to demonstrate a method by which this can be achieved that does not devolve into human strife and actually does what you desire.
Frankly, existing nuclear powers would not go through with this.
The fact is that no one would. To preemptively stop the issue is supposedly more immoral than to let it happen, despite the eventual outcome is far more horrific.
The problem is hardly unknown, scientists and philosophers have been talking about it since the late 18th century. All modern science has done is progressively refine the model and the point where things tip.
The problem: Earth can, at last estimate, handle a maximum of 10 billion people. That's the most the arable land and fresh water can support, according to most credible studies. It will likely fall short of that, due to the influence of the wealthy, as well as the inefficiency that some agricultural systems suffer from. At the current rate of growth, humanity will hit that cap by the end of this century, if not sooner.
The reason I say 'sooner' is that resource division is not, as several have pointed out, equal. We'll see the poorest regions go to hell first, as the Catholic Church and several other international organizations are well aware. The middle east will likely become even more of a hellhole, as the divide between rich and poor there is so steep. Large areas of Africa, India, and China will likely suffer the worst by way of famine and disease.
Someone, thinking they can save themselves at the expense of others (remember those wealthy and powerful?) will eventually pull the trigger on a biological weapon to try and reduce the population. Preferably someone else's population. The problem with this solution is that not only do these things mutate in the wild, but that they're unguided.
The numbers I've heard bandied about for this sort of event are 85-99% casualties, using a highly infectious virus that has a long time delay before onset of symptoms and then goes the Ebola route.
Given that genetic engineering is the science most likely (from what we know atm) to dominate the next century, bar some improbable (but not impossible) new advances in material engineering. Unfortunately, you can't genetically engineer your way out of it, without going places much, much darker than mere mass killings. You can engineer faster growing, more productive crops, but in doing so you end up strip-mining the soil of useful nutrients until it's unusable due to the limitations of chemical fertilizers. (Dustbowl 2.0)
Ok so a scientist with no funding and no government involvement is going to develop this disease and keep it completely from the knowledge of any government/individual who disagrees with their course of action.
motyak wrote: Ok so a scientist with no funding and no government involvement is going to develop this disease and keep it completely from the knowledge of any government/individual who disagrees with their course of action.
That sounds...farfetched
No. (though I can't say, perhaps genetic advancement will reach that point, however) the issue is that one or more people with money and power will have them create a bioweapon like this thinking to save their own assess at the expense of everyone else.
motyak wrote: I was talking about your magic 90% totally fair kill bug
Ah, i was using a hypothetical nanotechnology as a example of how it would be done with absolute fairness, yes. Sadly, you'd have a dozen corporations lined up offering to fund your research if you could promise them the single underpinning breakthrough that would allow it to work. The Pentagon calls it the Grey Dust or Grey Goo scenario, wherein an experimental nanotechnological Von Nuemann machine goes out of control and wipes out all life on Earth in a few hours. We have several of the precursor technologies for it now, but the gap is finding a way to program them so they operate as a group.
You think dozens of corporations would fund you, and the government would let you work on, nanotechnology that'll kill a random 90% of the population. Nevermind, I'm back out of this thread.
motyak wrote: I was talking about your magic 90% totally fair kill bug
Ah, i was using a hypothetical nanotechnology as a example of how it would be done with absolute fairness, yes. Sadly, you'd have a dozen corporations lined up offering to fund your research if you could promise them the single underpinning breakthrough that would allow it to work. The Pentagon calls it the Grey Dust or Grey Goo scenario, wherein an experimental nanotechnological Von Nuemann machine goes out of control and wipes out all life on Earth in a few hours. We have several of the precursor technologies for it now, but the gap is finding a way to program them so they operate as a group.
Just curious, but did you have anything other than usual for breakfast this morning? Or did you watch too much sci-fi?
That might have been true before the invention of modern medicine.
so how's Freddy Mercury doing these days? Talked to Rock Hudson lately? Read anything new by Issac Asimov?
Modern medicine does have limits.
Medicine has limits, but most deadly diseases that claimed so many lifes in the past are under control. The diseases for which there are no medicine are relatively tame and don't threaten to wipe out large percentages of the world population because they are not contagious and thus don't threaten more than one person at a time. Epidemics are what scary, and tell me, when was the last deadly epidemic in any wealthy nation?
Let's get the parameters of this scenario straight. How is this 90% cull to be achieved? Is it war, disease, voluntary sterilization, suicide, meteor strike, or what?
I thought it was just a "what if" discussion, not someone advocating a cull.
Relapse wrote: Let's get the parameters of this scenario straight. How is this 90% cull to be achieved? Is it war, disease, voluntary sterilization, suicide, meteor strike, or what?
I thought it was just a "what if" discussion, not someone advocating a cull.
Relapse wrote: Let's get the parameters of this scenario straight. How is this 90% cull to be achieved? Is it war, disease, voluntary sterilization, suicide, meteor strike, or what?
I thought it was just a "what if" discussion, not someone advocating a cull.
No, OP is advocating a cull.
I have interest in the hypothetical aftermath of a massive depopulation.
A targeted cull is not so interesting to me, especially with talk of deliberately engineered nano tech viruses or plagues that target the not 10%.
I have interest in the hypothetical aftermath of a massive depopulation.
That's actually what the thread was about, but Things have gotten rather OT with the usual jokers decrying me for suggesting the outcome would be positive for humanity in general.
motyak wrote: You think dozens of corporations would fund you, and the government would let you work on, nanotechnology that'll kill a random 90% of the population. Nevermind, I'm back out of this thread.
I hate to point this pout, but the government allows corporations to work on potentially world ending technologies every day. What they regulate is it's release into the wild (US biotech policy is...a mess, frankly). And they only did that after the genetically engineered 'Frostban' (an altered version of Pseudomonas syringae) bacteria was released into the wild in California. Testing of the site was examined over time by the California department of Food and agriculture, which determined that the modified bacteria was indeed spreading, though it posed no more threat to the environment than it's non altered kin.
Frostban was designed to alter the formation of ice crystals, to prevent the formation of frost on surfaces treated with the bacteria. While the wilder claims about it were hysteria, the fact is the testers didn't know either. They had done the bare minimum of what regulations required and that was it. To test it for the first time out in the world, they sprayed it in an open field of strawberries, with no containment procedure worked out in advance should it prove detrimental.
Relapse wrote: Let's get the parameters of this scenario straight. How is this 90% cull to be achieved? Is it war, disease, voluntary sterilization, suicide, meteor strike, or what?
I thought it was just a "what if" discussion, not someone advocating a cull.
It could be achieved in a variety of ways. Nano-tech was just my thought on the way to make the 'fairest' way to do it. So far though, rather than address if my suggestion that the outcome would be positive for humanity in the long term, all we've seen are posts decrying what a monster I am for suggesting such a thing.
No, OP is advocating a cull over the other potential ways that a depopulation event will eventually occur. A cull would be the least nasty of them for humanity overall, and possibly have long term benefits.
No, OP is advocating a cull over the other potential ways that a depopulation event will eventually occur. A cull would be the least nasty of them for humanity overall, and possibly have long term benefits.
So, OP is advocating a cull.
Don't mince words or hide your position. It is pretty clear to anyone reading the topic.
No, OP is advocating a cull over the other potential ways that a depopulation event will eventually occur. A cull would be the least nasty of them for humanity overall, and possibly have long term benefits.
A cull would be the least nasty of them for humanity overall,
Except of course for the 90% being opted out against their will.
I've asked before, and I'll ask again. What happens when that 90% refuse to cooperate? I sure as feth wouldn't, I would fight you to the death.
Is this 10% of each countries current population? Are we leaving India and China with populations higher than than that of the UK? or Chad? or Cuba?
10% of the current population split evenly across countries currently in existence?
Is this 10% population controlled? who controls it? Are countries still independent?
Yes, because Jim the garbage man is special and elite because he rolled a 10. The supposition being that the 10% that live are selected in a purely random way.
Can't be done. Cannot be random. There has to be a measure of control. Race, Gender, age, education, IQ, affiliations, psychology. *Usefulness. It's eugenics writ large.
Randomly I can end up with a new population consisting of Chinese, Indian and Malay farmers. Or psychopaths. Or a mixture.
BaronIveagh wrote: So far though, rather than address if my suggestion that the outcome would be positive for humanity in the long term, all we've seen are posts decrying what a monster I am for suggesting such a thing.
No, I don't think it would be in our long term interests. We'd be creating a new genetic bottleneck for ourselves. And what would we become? We'd be monsters. We wouldn't deserve to survive as a race if we did this.
What is in our best interests lies in investing in technological advancement:
Cleaner more efficient energy production, transportation, agriculture etc.
More sustainable management of resources.
Population control.
Better medical technology to prolong our lives, so people stay healthy for longer and are able to work longer.
Space travel and terraforming technology, so we can expand out to other planets, moons and solar systems and gain access to the infinite resources out there.
all we've seen are posts decrying what a monster I am for suggesting such a thing.
You are advocating the mass murder of billions of people. What else should we call you?
Mr. Burning wrote: I have interest in the hypothetical aftermath of a massive depopulation.
That's actually what the thread was about, but Things have gotten rather OT with the usual jokers decrying me for suggesting the outcome would be positive for humanity in general.
It doesn't matter if you're only discussing hypotheticals here, the way you are presenting it is giving the impression that you think this is something we should do should this hypothetical scenario ever becomes practical possibility, and that you want it to happen.
I've asked before, and I'll ask again. What happens when that 90% refuse to cooperate? I sure as feth wouldn't, I would fight you to the death.
Not to mention the remaining 10% who suddenly find themselves being forced to fundamentally alter the way they live. If we accept BaronIveagh's premise of random selection, then there are going to be an awful lot of people forced into forms of work that they do not enjoy, and know nothing about.
I mean, what happens if very few farmers are left after the bomb? Are all the remaining bankers going to miraculously know how to grow corn? Clearly not. This means shortages, which mean conflict. Conflict which will almost certainly turn violent as there is no way any of the government structures which presently exist would survive. Couple that with an overabundance of weaponry and you have a recipe for Fury Road.
And that's before we get into the psychological trauma that would be caused when 10% of the population sees most, if not all, of their friends and loved ones suddenly die.
I have interest in the hypothetical aftermath of a massive depopulation.
That's actually what the thread was about, but Things have gotten rather OT with the usual jokers decrying me for suggesting the outcome would be positive for humanity in general.
I don't like making fun of you, but you have to admit your proposition is a little... odd... to say the least.
motyak wrote: You think dozens of corporations would fund you, and the government would let you work on, nanotechnology that'll kill a random 90% of the population. Nevermind, I'm back out of this thread.
I hate to point this pout, but the government allows corporations to work on potentially world ending technologies every day. What they regulate is it's release into the wild (US biotech policy is...a mess, frankly). And they only did that after the genetically engineered 'Frostban' (an altered version of Pseudomonas syringae) bacteria was released into the wild in California. Testing of the site was examined over time by the California department of Food and agriculture, which determined that the modified bacteria was indeed spreading, though it posed no more threat to the environment than it's non altered kin.
Frostban was designed to alter the formation of ice crystals, to prevent the formation of frost on surfaces treated with the bacteria. While the wilder claims about it were hysteria, the fact is the testers didn't know either. They had done the bare minimum of what regulations required and that was it. To test it for the first time out in the world, they sprayed it in an open field of strawberries, with no containment procedure worked out in advance should it prove detrimental.
I don't know, but spraying a few modified potentially frost-resistant bacteria on a field of strawberries doesn't exactly scream "world ending" to me. I suppose the truly dangerous technologies are under high security.
Relapse wrote: Let's get the parameters of this scenario straight. How is this 90% cull to be achieved? Is it war, disease, voluntary sterilization, suicide, meteor strike, or what?
I thought it was just a "what if" discussion, not someone advocating a cull.
It could be achieved in a variety of ways. Nano-tech was just my thought on the way to make the 'fairest' way to do it. So far though, rather than address if my suggestion that the outcome would be positive for humanity in the long term, all we've seen are posts decrying what a monster I am for suggesting such a thing.
Because advocating the murder of 90% of all people is actually pretty damn monstrous maybe? Also, nanotechnology, at this early stage is mostly still speculative. We still don't fully know what we will be able to do with it and what not.
No, OP is advocating a cull over the other potential ways that a depopulation event will eventually occur. A cull would be the least nasty of them for humanity overall, and possibly have long term benefits.
How would a cull be better than alternatives? TBH, I prefer a good old fashioned war over some creepy nanotech. In fact, a cull will likely lead to war anyhow.
Lowest population that can sustain a viable industrial civilization at current levels of technology. If you kill more than that, you see too much regression technologically. that and it's one of the biggest numbers that we have a historical example of for purposes of examination. Hubei province in China experainced a loss of 90% of it's population during the Black Death. During this same time, Europe had isolated areas that lost 70-80%.
Mr. Burning wrote:
Is this 10% of each countries current population? Are we leaving India and China with populations higher than than that of the UK? or Chad? or Cuba?
Even at 1 in 10 across the board, odds make it so that you'd have a larger population in India and China.
Mr. Burning wrote:
Is this 10% population controlled? who controls it? Are countries still independent?
I can't speak for other countries, but both SNI and the USA have protocols in place for this so that government continues forward even if 99% of the population does not.
Mr. Burning wrote:
Can't be done. Cannot be random. There has to be a measure of control. Race, Gender, age, education, IQ, affiliations, psychology. *Usefulness. It's eugenics writ large.
Randomly I can end up with a new population consisting of Chinese, Indian and Malay farmers. Or psychopaths. Or a mixture.
Given the numbers involved, you'd get a mixture. Random is pretty much the only way to do it. Once you get choice involved, you get bribery, you get power plays and attempts at gaming the system. You get manipulation.
dogma wrote:
Not to mention the remaining 10% who suddenly find themselves being forced to fundamentally alter the way they live. If we accept BaronIveagh's premise of random selection, then there are going to be an awful lot of people forced into forms of work that they do not enjoy, and know nothing about.
Well, depends on if the populations start consolidating or not. If they try to stick it out in their home towns, then, yes, you'd see some issues with that. If the populations start consolidating, even within existing countries, you'd see fewer issues with that than you might think. Followign the Black Death, workers frequently moved ot new areas in search or work, and/or higher wages. That said, some people would be looking for new employment. People retrain for new jobs all the time now. You don't see VCR repairmen putting together too many scrap vehicles, painting themselves blue, and hunting Mel Gibson through the sand dunes.
dogma wrote:
I mean, what happens if very few farmers are left after the bomb? Are all the remaining bankers going to miraculously know how to grow corn? Clearly not.
Let me introduce you to something, you may have heard about them from the days before the the personal computer...
Further, the flip side is also true, people who had the knowledge to do a job but instead worked in in other areas due to a lack of positions would have opportunities to advance themselves.
dogma wrote:
And that's before we get into the psychological trauma that would be caused when 10% of the population sees most, if not all, of their friends and loved ones suddenly die.
This part is true. Mass death does leave a serious mark on the survivors. If you examine the literature of post black death Europe, themes turn dark, and pessimistic. While the Feudal system did begin it's final collapse following the vast dying, governments remained in power, despite losing a very large number of bureaucrats.
No one has said there would not be social upheaval following such a large dying. That goes without saying. However, if you look at what followed the black death, *most* of the outcomes were positive.
I've asked before, and I'll ask again. What happens when that 90% refuse to cooperate? I sure as feth wouldn't, I would fight you to the death.
Fight or not matters not. The only thing a cull offers is a chance to die on your own terms, and with less suffering all around. Some would fight it. They might even win. And then they'd join the rest in dying anyway.
I don't like making fun of you, but you have to admit your proposition is a little... odd... to say the least.
Well, I do spend a great deal of time these days coming up with ways to end the world so that plans can be drawn up to prevent it from damaging government documents.
I don't know, but spraying a few modified potentially frost-resistant bacteria on a field of strawberries doesn't exactly scream "world ending" to me. I suppose the truly dangerous technologies are under high security.
It depends on the degree to which you are altering the formation of ice. The unaltered bacteria are used in the creation of artificial snow for ski resorts, as they can accelerate the formation of ice crystals. If the ice prevention bacteria works as designed, it's fine. If it doesn't, then you have issues with cloud formation and altering the world wide water cycle because bacteria are preventing ice crystals from forming. Nanotech is the same way, in theory. A nanomachine designed to break down organic carbons in petroleum to clean up oil spills could also be used to break down the organic carbons in you.
Well crap, then. I didn't realize Colonial governments and the U.S. government were doing such favors for Aboriginal peoples when they killed them off.
Aztec Empire die off, anyone? Trail of Tears? All brought about to improve the lives of those who suffered through them.
Relapse wrote: Well crap, then. I didn't realize Colonial governments and the U.S. government were doing such favors for Aboriginal peoples when they killed them off. Aztec Empire die off, anyone? Trail of Tears? All brought about to improve the lives of those who suffered through them.
Heh. Living space for the privileged 10%. A 21st Century Lebensraum.
Relapse wrote: Well crap, then. I didn't realize Colonial governments and the U.S. government were doing such favors for Aboriginal peoples when they killed them off.
Aztec Empire die off, anyone? Trail of Tears? All brought about to improve the lives of those who suffered through them.
And do you think that those things will not recur if resources get tight enough? You think that governments won't happily turn on their neighbors if it means their own people, and they, personally, might live one more day? Remember that those all were caused, either directly or indirectly, by greed for resources. Resources that are finite. And when the clock strikes zero, you are going to look back on things like 65 million natives dying of imported disease and think of it as minor.
Relapse wrote: Well crap, then. I didn't realize Colonial governments and the U.S. government were doing such favors for Aboriginal peoples when they killed them off.
Aztec Empire die off, anyone? Trail of Tears? All brought about to improve the lives of those who suffered through them.
And do you think that those things will not recur if resources get tight enough? You think that governments won't happily turn on their neighbors if it means their own people, and they, personally, might live one more day? Remember that those all were caused, either directly or indirectly, by greed for resources. Resources that are finite. And when the clock strikes zero, you are going to look back on things like 65 million natives dying of imported disease and think of it as minor.
It very well might occur, but I'm not gonna be one of the ones dancing around celebrating it, singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" if it does and I survive.
dogma wrote:
I mean, what happens if very few farmers are left after the bomb? Are all the remaining bankers going to miraculously know how to grow corn? Clearly not.
Let me introduce you to something, you may have heard about them from the days before the the personal computer...
Further, the flip side is also true, people who had the knowledge to do a job but instead worked in in other areas due to a lack of positions would have opportunities to advance themselves.
Right. Because when someone reads about something, they are instantly an expert in it. Man, all those students spending multiple years to learn the basics in their fields must feel really stupid right now.
Right. Because when someone reads about something, they are instantly an expert in it. Man, all those students spending multiple years to learn the basics in their fields must feel really stupid right now.
On the flip side of that, there are quite a large number of people who have a "hobby farm" or some form of food producing plant that they grow in their garden. Obviously, this is on a small "personal" scale. To me, that is that absolute basics of farming, and I would think that if you can get that down, upping the scale to support a small community, or collectively upping the scale shouldn't be as big a problem as one would think.
I think the bigger problems will come from all the hybrid seeds. Ya know, the ones that cannot be used but for one season, and don't produce seed at the end of that life span? Those kinds of seed, which seem to be the bulk of modern day agricultural business (Monsanto, et al) will cause some havoc in the food supply, if there is a 90% reduction. This isn't to say that those who remain won't figure something out, but it'll be a rough period of time.
He's been telling us here on Dakka in this thread and that others he's part of an ultra secret government think tank, his family helped build the ABomb, he's a master warrior, etc., so I imagine his bet is on he'll be in the 10%.
Right. Because when someone reads about something, they are instantly an expert in it. Man, all those students spending multiple years to learn the basics in their fields must feel really stupid right now.
On the flip side of that, there are quite a large number of people who have a "hobby farm" or some form of food producing plant that they grow in their garden. Obviously, this is on a small "personal" scale. To me, that is that absolute basics of farming, and I would think that if you can get that down, upping the scale to support a small community, or collectively upping the scale shouldn't be as big a problem as one would think.
I think the bigger problems will come from all the hybrid seeds. Ya know, the ones that cannot be used but for one season, and don't produce seed at the end of that life span? Those kinds of seed, which seem to be the bulk of modern day agricultural business (Monsanto, et al) will cause some havoc in the food supply, if there is a 90% reduction. This isn't to say that those who remain won't figure something out, but it'll be a rough period of time.
Right. Because when someone reads about something, they are instantly an expert in it. Man, all those students spending multiple years to learn the basics in their fields must feel really stupid right now.
On the flip side of that, there are quite a large number of people who have a "hobby farm" or some form of food producing plant that they grow in their garden. Obviously, this is on a small "personal" scale. To me, that is that absolute basics of farming, and I would think that if you can get that down, upping the scale to support a small community, or collectively upping the scale shouldn't be as big a problem as one would think.
I think the bigger problems will come from all the hybrid seeds. Ya know, the ones that cannot be used but for one season, and don't produce seed at the end of that life span? Those kinds of seed, which seem to be the bulk of modern day agricultural business (Monsanto, et al) will cause some havoc in the food supply, if there is a 90% reduction. This isn't to say that those who remain won't figure something out, but it'll be a rough period of time.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: I think the bigger problems will come from all the hybrid seeds. Ya know, the ones that cannot be used but for one season, and don't produce seed at the end of that life span? Those kinds of seed, which seem to be the bulk of modern day agricultural business (Monsanto, et al) will cause some havoc in the food supply, if there is a 90% reduction. This isn't to say that those who remain won't figure something out, but it'll be a rough period of time.
You'd want 'heirloom' varieties (they're actually marketed as such). Even figuring a 10% population, Pennsylvania would be left with a fair number of Amish who'd be happy to demonstrate the basics. One thing that seems ot throw people is the 10% figure. It's still a VERY large number of people still alive. It would set the US back, population wise, to around the Civil War.
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Relapse wrote: He's been telling us here on Dakka in this thread and that others he's part of an ultra secret government think tank
Nothing secret about it. Hell, we were just featured in a agency wide video. Yes, i worked for a PMC, a Casino, SNI, and now Uncle Sam (paygrade now: GS-10). Whoopdy Do. You would not believe how boring finding ways to preserve your paperwork for all time actually is. think about every government form you have ever filled out and know that our job is to make sure nothing ever happens and that a copy of it will exist forever.
That does, however, necessitate that we consider the possibility that the world end and how to determine how to prevent that from damaging your documents. When you try and collect your social security payment or military pension after some manner of large scale disaster, you'll be glad we did.
Experiment 626 wrote: Seeing a topic like this and what the OP is proposing makes me wish that Yellowstone would just do us all a favour and blow...
And yet, I'm horrible for proposing doing in a controlled and fair manner what you are advocating be done on much grander scale.
And yet, he is talking about a natural disaster, but you are talking about deliberately bringing about a new Holocaust that will make Hitler and Stalin look like amateurs.
Experiment 626 wrote: Seeing a topic like this and what the OP is proposing makes me wish that Yellowstone would just do us all a favour and blow...
And yet, I'm horrible for proposing doing in a controlled and fair manner what you are advocating be done on much grander scale.
I don't see whats fair about it.
Demanding billions of people submit to a lottery to see who gets to live and who is exterminated. Murdering those who object and resist. Turning a blind eye to the rich and powerful using their influence to game the system.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: I think the bigger problems will come from all the hybrid seeds. Ya know, the ones that cannot be used but for one season, and don't produce seed at the end of that life span? Those kinds of seed, which seem to be the bulk of modern day agricultural business (Monsanto, et al) will cause some havoc in the food supply, if there is a 90% reduction. This isn't to say that those who remain won't figure something out, but it'll be a rough period of time.
You'd want 'heirloom' varieties (they're actually marketed as such). Even figuring a 10% population, Pennsylvania would be left with a fair number of Amish who'd be happy to demonstrate the basics. One thing that seems ot throw people is the 10% figure. It's still a VERY large number of people still alive. It would set the US back, population wise, to around the Civil War.
But, what if, say, Amish, being fairly insular, have missed out on the gene which gives resistance to the population bomb? Heck, lets go further. Lets say that people of African descent picked up some gene which gives them much higher resistance to the population than any other demographic. In the US, they can form that coveted 10% by themselves, even without a 100% survival rate. To my knowledge, there are not a lot of Black Amish. Then, lets consider the fact that African-Americans, as a group, are still less well educated on average than other groups. So while this 10% still catches a lot of brilliant people, the average is lower than a clean cut across demographics.
Relapse wrote: Baron, don't forget to talk about the SEALs and Marines you habitually beat up on 2 and 3 at a time, as you PM'd me about.
My lifetime bar-fight score has changed in the last three years, btw. and it was only one supposed SEAL, and only two marines that one time. Since then, you can add one more sailor and one more loss (same sailor, on another occasion. Watch out folks, some of those guys really know their way around a length of chain). And I'd like to thank the owners of the Landmark Hotel for having provided such excellent entertainment.
Demanding billions of people submit to a lottery to see who gets to live and who is exterminated.
Murdering those who object and resist.
Turning a blind eye to the rich and powerful using their influence to game the system.
No, those are all the things you've been accusing me of. As I pointed out, if, I, personally, were going to design a cull, I'd make it so there was no way to game the system. You can't bribe an electron or a virus. They don't care how rich you are. Alfonso 'the Implacable' of Castile was a brutally efficient ruler who could run politics and armies with the best. He was just as dead.
If it were me, i wouldn't be asking anyone submit to anything. I'd just set it up and let it go. By the time anyone knew what was in motion, it would already be over. I'm not. I don't even pretend to have the technical background to pull it off. But, if I were to be the one creating something like that, that's what I would do. You can have one infected person ride the major airlines through the main transportation hubs, and, as long as symptoms don't manifest for a month or more, you could infect half the planet in a few weeks.
But, what if, say, Amish, being fairly insular, have missed out on the gene which gives resistance to the population bomb? Heck, lets go further. Lets say that people of African descent picked up some gene which gives them much higher resistance to the population than any other demographic. In the US, they can form that coveted 10% by themselves, even without a 100% survival rate. To my knowledge, there are not a lot of Black Amish. Then, lets consider the fact that African-Americans, as a group, are still less well educated on average than other groups. So while this 10% still catches a lot of brilliant people, the average is lower than a clean cut across demographics.
It's.... unlikely but possible. Your supposition depends more on them being Old Order Amish than some of the newer offshoots. That said, while the education level might be low, it would most likely catch up quickly as people sought to fill vacancies.
You find it curious that in bar fights, the biggest guy in the room is not going to go down easily? this isn't the movies, smash someone with a large enough object, it it doesn't matter what training they've had. A lot of them have made the mistake to try and go for the solar plexus, but what you want to do in a bar fight against someone my size is go for the knees.
I don't like making fun of you, but you have to admit your proposition is a little... odd... to say the least.
Well, I do spend a great deal of time these days coming up with ways to end the world so that plans can be drawn up to prevent it from damaging government documents.
Demanding billions of people submit to a lottery to see who gets to live and who is exterminated. Murdering those who object and resist. Turning a blind eye to the rich and powerful using their influence to game the system.
No, those are all the things you've been accusing me of. As I pointed out, if, I, personally, were going to design a cull, I'd make it so there was no way to game the system. You can't bribe an electron or a virus.
How would you ensure that, if I may ask. You may not be able to bribe a virus, but you can bribe the scientist making the virus. Also, with enough power and money, you can get scientists to make a cure for you.
It's really, really boring. Every day, I make sure 70k odd documents are preserved to the current standard, and every week there's a new standard. Putin says something crazy: new standard. Some scientists announce a discovery: new standard. OPM losses everyone's data: new standard. Seriously, I've had water cooler conversations that went:"What if Putin joins ISIS?" "But what might they do?" "How about a computer virus that strobes a hypnotic patten that makes everyone who sees it a suicide bomber...? " "We better draw up a new form for that one..." And thus, there is a procedure in the event of the 'Sexy Putin Allah Hypno-pocalypse.'
How so? And what exactly are the alternatives according to you?
Famine, plague, and world war are all likely in some combination before the current century is out, brought on by the struggle for resources. Not so much oil and gas as food and water. The closer we get to the 10 billion mark, the more likely it gets. And then, all bets are off. Though it most likely will not be nuclear, as that would destroy too many of the resources people would be fighting for.
How would you ensure that, if I may ask. You may not be able to bribe a virus, but you can bribe the scientist making the virus. Also, with enough power and money, you can get scientists to make a cure for you.
Cures take time, and in some cases are highly difficult. Virii for example are hard to cure. And there's no point in bribing the original guy, as i someone were willign to do soemthign like this, they're probably not in it for the money. Funny thing, but the worst crimes are committed in the name of ideology, not wealth.
Followign the Black Death, workers frequently moved ot new areas in search or work, and/or higher wages.
The Black Death didn't come anywhere close to killing off 90% of the human population (Most figures I've seen are around 50%, varying widely by region.), nor did it incite the downfall of society; which the random loss of 90% of the human population would cause.
That said, some people would be looking for new employment. People retrain for new jobs all the time now. You don't see VCR repairmen putting together too many scrap vehicles, painting themselves blue, and hunting Mel Gibson through the sand dunes.
Of course not, because society continued to exist after the VCR became obsolete. Your analogy is a poor one.
Let me introduce you to something, you may have heard about them from the days before the the personal computer...
I'm aware of what books are, and I am also aware that people can learn. However I know that learning takes time (especially when the concepts involved are complicated), and that time is not a luxury people have in the wake of societal collapse. I can guarantee a large number of the 10% left alive after your population bomb would be dead within the first year simply due to scarcity and ignorance, to say nothing of violence. Remember, when the Black Death hit a really large chunk of the population survived through farming, so food production wasn't an issue for them. Compare that to the modern world in which the vast majority of people would struggle to keep individual tomato plants alive.
Further, the flip side is also true, people who had the knowledge to do a job but instead worked in in other areas due to a lack of positions would have opportunities to advance themselves.
That phenomenon tends to be more prevalent at the higher end of the educational ladder, particularly in highly technical fields that would have little use after your population bomb.
dogma wrote: The Black Death didn't come anywhere close to killing off 90% of the human population (Most figures I've seen are around 50%, varying widely by region.), nor did it incite the downfall of society; which the random loss of 90% of the human population would cause.
Actually parts of China saw casualties as high has 90%. England saw 70%. Norway saw 60% and France, Spain and Portugal may have seen as high was 80% according to some estimates, though the on-going Hundred years war in France and war against the moors in Spain muddies the issue. None of these places collapsed, despite being reduced to vastly smaller numbers than 10% of the current population.
However I know that learning takes time (especially when the concepts involved are complicated), and that time is not a luxury people have in the wake of societal collapse. I can guarantee a large number of the 10% left alive after your population bomb would be dead within the first year simply due to scarcity and ignorance, to say nothing of violence. Remember, when the Black Death hit a really large chunk of the population survived through farming, so food production wasn't an issue for them. Compare that to the modern world in which the vast majority of people would struggle to keep individual tomato plants alive.
Maybe it's just because of where I'm from, but around here most people can garden, and some towns even still allow the keeping of chickens in town. As far as the collapse of society, i doubt it. Even the Mayans, who actually did undergo a series of massive contractions survived as a functioning society until the Spanish Invasion finally put an end to it.
That phenomenon tends to be more prevalent at the higher end of the educational ladder, particularly in highly technical fields that would have little use after your population bomb.
Visiting my local WalMart today, I put together a mechanic, two farmers, a medical student, an engineer, and an English Lit major. I'm gonna say none of them worked there by choice, and only one of them is likely not to be much use come the apocalypse.
Crazy_Carnifex wrote: Heck, lets go further. Lets say that people of African descent picked up some gene which gives them much higher resistance to the population than any other demographic.
Soo.... Sickle Cell.
@dogma... One could actually argue that the Black Death incited an "uptick" in society. After that 50-60% drop off in population, all those "low class" merchants who were now the wealthiest in the country wanted their say in government.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: One could actually argue that the Black Death incited an "uptick" in society. After that 50-60% drop off in population, all those "low class" merchants who were now the wealthiest in the country wanted their say in government.
It also spurred the development of labor saving devices and an increase in animal husbandry, since there were now large areas of farmland available for pasturage. Further, it signaled the end of alchemy as accepted medical practice.
Actually parts of China saw casualties as high has 90%. England saw 70%. Norway saw 60% and France, Spain and Portugal may have seen as high was 80% according to some estimates, though the on-going Hundred years war in France and war against the moors in Spain muddies the issue. None of these places collapsed, despite being reduced to vastly smaller numbers than 10% of the current population.
You'll note the part where I said "...varying widely by region.". But anyway, the figures you've presented are on the high end of historical estimates. England, for example, is generally thought to have lost ~50% of its population, not 70% and the figures that are generally accepted for France, Spain, and Portugal hover in the 60% range. I'll also point out that the gross number of survivors is far less relevant than their pattern of dispersal, and percent change from the status quo.
Regardless, comparing your depopulation bomb idea is a fools errand for several reasons:
1. Modern society is nothing like 14th century society. In particular the skills necessary to essentially start from scratch were much more widely possessed.
2. Your entire premise is based on a randomized selection process, but the Black Death clearly affected certain regions (and population classes) more heavily than others; meaning it was not random.
3. Feudalism, being highly decentralized, is extremely resistant to the issues created by depopulation; particularly in the case of something like the Black Death where the wealthy and their retainers would have been less affected.
As far as the collapse of society, i doubt it. Even the Mayans, who actually did undergo a series of massive contractions survived as a functioning society until the Spanish Invasion finally put an end to it.
Sure, but that society changed dramatically over the history of Mayan civilization, punctuated by the preclassic and classic collapses ("Mayan" is a word with a very broad meaning.). Bear in mind when I say that society will collapse, I'm not implying that it won't be replaced by something else.
Visiting my local WalMart today, I put together a mechanic, two farmers, a medical student, an engineer, and an English Lit major. I'm gonna say none of them worked there by choice, and only one of them is likely not to be much use come the apocalypse.
I question the ability, and honesty, of an engineer and a mechanic that are stuck working at Walmart. Farmers and students I understand, the latter group have significant time constraints (given the time of year its likely a summer job), and the former have few readily transferable skills.
@dogma... One could actually argue that the Black Death incited an "uptick" in society. After that 50-60% drop off in population, all those "low class" merchants who were now the wealthiest in the country wanted their say in government.
Actually the greatest benefit was seen by the peasantry, as their labor was now in much greater demand. Of course, that didn't last and landowners actively fought against increasing wages, with mixed results.
The hierarchy of gentry and nobility stayed pretty much the same, though some members of the gentry were able takeover land from their recently deceased neighbors, and increase their status that way.
This theory sounds like an inefficient global solution to localised problems.
Who is causing overpopulation, where, and why? Demographics is a fine art, you can't brush the world with broad strokes. China being overpopulated doesn't mean you bomb Argentina to balance the books.
VorpalBunny74 wrote: This theory sounds like an inefficient global solution to localised problems.
Who is causing overpopulation, where, and why? Demographics is a fine art, you can't brush the world with broad strokes. China being overpopulated doesn't mean you bomb Argentina to balance the books.
The problem is that there's no such thing as a 'local' problem when it comes to water and food issues. Trade usually evens things out, but there's a certain tipping point where the planet simply cannot support sufficient food production to feed the human population anymore. Individual countries can have overpopulation before that point, but once that point is reached, that's all she wrote.
Once that point is reached, countries without are going to start attacking countries that are not overpopulated, to try and feed themselves.
1. Modern society is nothing like 14th century society. In particular the skills necessary to essentially start from scratch were much more widely possessed.
2. Your entire premise is based on a randomized selection process, but the Black Death clearly affected certain regions (and population classes) more heavily than others; meaning it was not random.
3. Feudalism, being highly decentralized, is extremely resistant to the issues created by depopulation; particularly in the case of something like the Black Death where the wealthy and their retainers would have been less affected.
1) yes, but on the flip side you don't actually have to start from scratch.
2) yes, like all diseases, the black death tended to gravitate in cities. At one point over 1/3rd of London was empty.
3) less effected is not unaffected. and, mind you, at the same time several long going wars were being fought which radically cut into the numbers of the wealthy and their retainers.
Sure, but that society changed dramatically over the history of Mayan civilization, punctuated by the preclassic and classic collapses ("Mayan" is a word with a very broad meaning.). Bear in mind when I say that society will collapse, I'm not implying that it won't be replaced by something else.
Society has changed dramatically in the last 100 years without massive die offs. It will simply change again.
I question the ability, and honesty, of an engineer and a mechanic that are stuck working at Walmart. Farmers and students I understand, the latter group have significant time constraints (given the time of year its likely a summer job), and the former have few readily transferable skills.
It's easy when there's no work. and frankly it's easy to see it in the economic 'recovery' numbers. Number of jobs is up, but average wages is lower, meaning that people who previously took higher paying jobs instead took lower paying positions to make ends meet. ATM there's little work in this area for either, and if you can't relocate...
VorpalBunny74 wrote: This theory sounds like an inefficient global solution to localised problems.
Who is causing overpopulation, where, and why? Demographics is a fine art, you can't brush the world with broad strokes. China being overpopulated doesn't mean you bomb Argentina to balance the books.
The problem is that there's no such thing as a 'local' problem when it comes to water and food issues. Trade usually evens things out, but there's a certain tipping point where the planet simply cannot support sufficient food production to feed the human population anymore. Individual countries can have overpopulation before that point, but once that point is reached, that's all she wrote.
Once that point is reached, countries without are going to start attacking countries that are not overpopulated, to try and feed themselves.
And what is so bad about that? War is part of human nature. Wars have been fought over food, living space etc. before, why will it be so bad this time? Besides, Europe and North America will be fine. Virtually limitless water, the most fertile soil in the world, and far from overpopulated. Combine that with the military power to easily destroy any attackers, and I think it is going to be pretty quiet around here. I don't see this being a global problem.
VorpalBunny74 wrote: This theory sounds like an inefficient global solution to localised problems.
Who is causing overpopulation, where, and why? Demographics is a fine art, you can't brush the world with broad strokes. China being overpopulated doesn't mean you bomb Argentina to balance the books.
The problem is that there's no such thing as a 'local' problem when it comes to water and food issues. Trade usually evens things out, but there's a certain tipping point where the planet simply cannot support sufficient food production to feed the human population anymore. Individual countries can have overpopulation before that point, but once that point is reached, that's all she wrote.
Once that point is reached, countries without are going to start attacking countries that are not overpopulated, to try and feed themselves.
How aren't food and water local issues? You're looking too hard at the macro. Predictive modelling dies when you ignore too many variables.
Besides, your cull ignores the central issue - if mankind is 'better off' with a 90% drop in current population, what if our numbers grow to the exact same in a century? Another cull?
1) yes, but on the flip side you don't actually have to start from scratch.
Losing 90% of the global population (And as I pointed out before, it wouldn't stop there.) would fundamentally alter (if not outright eliminate) so many basic components of our daily lives that we may as well be reduced to subsistence farming. At 10% of the current global population you're talking supply chain disruptions that would massively reduce the availability of modern necessities like electricity and gasoline, not to mention food.
3) less effected is not unaffected. and, mind you, at the same time several long going wars were being fought which radically cut into the numbers of the wealthy and their retainers.
That might be why I said "less affected" and not "unaffected".
Anyway, the loss of the wealthy and their retainers was only an issue in certain regions, and not quite so important as you might think, given that the Black Death basically caused a break in the primary conflicts of the 100 Years' War. The fighting on the Iberian Peninsula had ended about 100 years before the Black Death, with the only remaining Muslim territory being the Emirate of Granada; which was aligned with the Crown of Castile.
Society has changed dramatically in the last 100 years without massive die offs. It will simply change again.
Then why bother with the whole "Let's kill 90% of the population." plan in the first place? If society can change without mass death, why intentionally cause it?
Also another thing to consider is how this influx will of mass bodies with no manpower to bury them will effect the survivors. The effect on the environment will be short term, but the effect on the final 10% will be horrible I imagine. Stench waves (which can kill) and a ton of pests being born as a result.
Also the other issue is that this 10% will be scattered all over the world. So most of these 10% will more than likely not even be near each other or have a chance at finding each other. So many of that 10% will likely die afterwards because:
Medical conditions
Infants
unable to survive
Bodies spreading disease or stenching up the cities
and so on
I reckon killing 90% of people would leave more than 90% dead within the month.
He's been telling us here on Dakka in this thread and that others he's part of an ultra secret government think tank, his family helped build the ABomb, he's a master warrior, etc., so I imagine his bet is on he'll be in the 10%.
He's been telling us here on Dakka in this thread and that others he's part of an ultra secret government think tank, his family helped build the ABomb, he's a master warrior, etc., so I imagine his bet is on he'll be in the 10%.
He's been telling us here on Dakka in this thread and that others he's part of an ultra secret government think tank, his family helped build the ABomb, he's a master warrior, etc., so I imagine his bet is on he'll be in the 10%.
He's been telling us here on Dakka in this thread and that others he's part of an ultra secret government think tank, his family helped build the ABomb, he's a master warrior, etc., so I imagine his bet is on he'll be in the 10%.
I bet he also knows Kung Fu.
And he goes by the alias of Neo.
Whoah.
He's the hero Dakka deserves. But not the hero we need right now. So we'll mock him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector of America's paperwork. A Dark Bureaucrat.
VorpalBunny74 wrote: This theory sounds like an inefficient global solution to localised problems.
Who is causing overpopulation, where, and why? Demographics is a fine art, you can't brush the world with broad strokes. China being overpopulated doesn't mean you bomb Argentina to balance the books.
The problem is that there's no such thing as a 'local' problem when it comes to water and food issues. Trade usually evens things out, but there's a certain tipping point where the planet simply cannot support sufficient food production to feed the human population anymore. Individual countries can have overpopulation before that point, but once that point is reached, that's all she wrote.
Once that point is reached, countries without are going to start attacking countries that are not overpopulated, to try and feed themselves.
And what is so bad about that? War is part of human nature. Wars have been fought over food, living space etc. before, why will it be so bad this time? Besides, Europe and North America will be fine. Virtually limitless water, the most fertile soil in the world, and far from overpopulated. Combine that with the military power to easily destroy any attackers, and I think it is going to be pretty quiet around here. I don't see this being a global problem.
I doubt we'll ever see another 'conventional' large scale modern war... Insurgent/guerilla warfare and the likes of civil conflict as is happening across the Middle East & the Ukraine sure, but full out nation-on-nation ala WWII? Nope, not happening.
If a scenario where to happen such as say a Yellowstone super eruption, or the entire Ring of Fire popping off, you'll be much more likely to have nations attacking eachother through cyber and/or chemical means.
Besides, the whole idea of the planet becoming too overpopulated within the next century is somewhat silly anyways... Most of the human population still lives in high risk areas for natural catastrophes, and as we've been seeing over the past 20+ years, these events are causing record setting death tolls.
The majority of the newest generations are being forced into areas that weren't populated in the past for example, because those areas were so prone to events like regular hurricanes/cyclones, are too arid for proper farming/sustainability, etc... And then there's countries such as China, where there soon won't be enough women to sustain the current growth rate.
The main concerns for an actual 'depopulation bomb' event are more likely to be caused by;
1. A near Earth object collision.
2. A VEI.8 level eruption.
3. Massive climate shift caused by our Sun.
4. Pandemic.
5. Zombiepocalypse!
A rouge state or some insane genocidal scientist gone rouge? Not so much.
Not good for surviving passengers on airplanes that just lost both pilots. Or the coastline when the oil tankers crash into them. Or the trains carrying hazardous cargo that run into gak...
He's been telling us here on Dakka in this thread and that others he's part of an ultra secret government think tank, his family helped build the ABomb, he's a master warrior, etc., so I imagine his bet is on he'll be in the 10%.
I bet he also knows Kung Fu.
He does seem to have in-depth knowledge of every single tank monument in Ukraine, which is quite amazing. Maybe he is planning to use them to build an army and take over the world? He looks the type...
VorpalBunny74 wrote: This theory sounds like an inefficient global solution to localised problems.
Who is causing overpopulation, where, and why? Demographics is a fine art, you can't brush the world with broad strokes. China being overpopulated doesn't mean you bomb Argentina to balance the books.
The problem is that there's no such thing as a 'local' problem when it comes to water and food issues. Trade usually evens things out, but there's a certain tipping point where the planet simply cannot support sufficient food production to feed the human population anymore. Individual countries can have overpopulation before that point, but once that point is reached, that's all she wrote.
Once that point is reached, countries without are going to start attacking countries that are not overpopulated, to try and feed themselves.
And what is so bad about that? War is part of human nature. Wars have been fought over food, living space etc. before, why will it be so bad this time? Besides, Europe and North America will be fine. Virtually limitless water, the most fertile soil in the world, and far from overpopulated. Combine that with the military power to easily destroy any attackers, and I think it is going to be pretty quiet around here. I don't see this being a global problem.
I doubt we'll ever see another 'conventional' large scale modern war... Insurgent/guerilla warfare and the likes of civil conflict as is happening across the Middle East & the Ukraine sure, but full out nation-on-nation ala WWII? Nope, not happening.
If a scenario where to happen such as say a Yellowstone super eruption, or the entire Ring of Fire popping off, you'll be much more likely to have nations attacking eachother through cyber and/or chemical means.
Besides, the whole idea of the planet becoming too overpopulated within the next century is somewhat silly anyways... Most of the human population still lives in high risk areas for natural catastrophes, and as we've been seeing over the past 20+ years, these events are causing record setting death tolls.
The majority of the newest generations are being forced into areas that weren't populated in the past for example, because those areas were so prone to events like regular hurricanes/cyclones, are too arid for proper farming/sustainability, etc... And then there's countries such as China, where there soon won't be enough women to sustain the current growth rate.
The main concerns for an actual 'depopulation bomb' event are more likely to be caused by;
1. A near Earth object collision.
2. A VEI.8 level eruption.
3. Massive climate shift caused by our Sun.
4. Pandemic.
5. Zombiepocalypse!
A rouge state or some insane genocidal scientist gone rouge? Not so much.
Africa on steroids. With bigger guns and the potential for greater levels of mayhem. But, very broadly, similar.
Experiment 626 wrote:
I doubt we'll ever see another 'conventional' large scale modern war... Insurgent/guerilla warfare and the likes of civil conflict as is happening across the Middle East & the Ukraine sure, but full out nation-on-nation ala WWII? Nope, not happening.
If a scenario where to happen such as say a Yellowstone super eruption, or the entire Ring of Fire popping off, you'll be much more likely to have nations attacking eachother through cyber and/or chemical means.
Actually my vote is biological. but, that said, yes, you will, eventually. The only thing that keeps it in check atm is the fear of Nuclear escalation. As long as the property they're fighting over is worth more than the human lives being expended, you can have a large conventional war, as a nuclear exchange would render the arable land they'd be fighting over worthless. It's why chemical would be unlikely too. Too much of a risk of soil and water contamination, depending on what they use.
Experiment 626 wrote:
Besides, the whole idea of the planet becoming too overpopulated within the next century is somewhat silly anyways... Most of the human population still lives in high risk areas for natural catastrophes, and as we've been seeing over the past 20+ years, these events are causing record setting death tolls.
And, yet, despite them, the population keeps growing. And, it might seem silly to you, but the UN etc are taking it seriously. Remember, the idea that humans might drive a species to extinction was considered silly once. After all, God would never let a species die out.
Experiment 626 wrote:
The main concerns for an actual 'depopulation bomb' event are more likely to be caused by;
1. A near Earth object collision.
2. A VEI.8 level eruption.
3. Massive climate shift caused by our Sun.
4. Pandemic.
Famine should be number 3 there, since 4 and 5 would cause 3 as a side effect.
Iron_Captain wrote:
He does seem to have in-depth knowledge of every single tank monument in Ukraine, which is quite amazing. Maybe he is planning to use them to build an army and take over the world? He looks the type...
Some things are easier to prove to people on the internet than others.
Experiment 626 wrote:
I doubt we'll ever see another 'conventional' large scale modern war... Insurgent/guerilla warfare and the likes of civil conflict as is happening across the Middle East & the Ukraine sure, but full out nation-on-nation ala WWII? Nope, not happening.
If a scenario where to happen such as say a Yellowstone super eruption, or the entire Ring of Fire popping off, you'll be much more likely to have nations attacking eachother through cyber and/or chemical means.
Actually my vote is biological. but, that said, yes, you will, eventually. The only thing that keeps it in check atm is the fear of Nuclear escalation. As long as the property they're fighting over is worth more than the human lives being expended, you can have a large conventional war, as a nuclear exchange would render the arable land they'd be fighting over worthless. It's why chemical would be unlikely too. Too much of a risk of soil and water contamination, depending on what they use.
Biological is harder than a lot of people think it is, which is why it hasn't been used since reliable chemical delivery was developed. What's your plan for when your bioweapon leaks out in your own country? By the way, it will. Either while you're developing it (and your own defenses for it) or while you're deploying it. Militaries had accidents with their chemical weapons all the time. Joe is going to drop one. During WW2 we did extensive chem weapon testing on our own troops. Bioweapons would be the same, except you have the risk of your bug escaping. Instead of a person poisoned with nerve agent, you have a guy carrying your own weaponized smallpox walking around Beijing. Even if your military chooses to liquidate it's "volunteers" after testing, there's always the human element. Some nurse will fall in love with some test subject and help him escape the purge. Now they're both spreading weaponized smallpox around Beijing.
Cyber is far more likely, for a variety of reasons. First, it's not an act of war to test your offensive cyber capabilities on another nation. Second, you can reliably impact a far larger portion of a population. Third, the second order effects of your cyber attack force the government to act against, rather than for, it's own people.
Think about it, what's more damaging for the risk? Unleashing smallpox or anthrax in a few major airports (for which the US reserves the right to nuke you), or shutting off everyone's EBT (which would be considered a civil act rather than a military one)?
It's really, really boring. Every day, I make sure 70k odd documents are preserved to the current standard, and every week there's a new standard. Putin says something crazy: new standard. Some scientists announce a discovery: new standard. OPM losses everyone's data: new standard. Seriously, I've had water cooler conversations that went:"What if Putin joins ISIS?" "But what might they do?" "How about a computer virus that strobes a hypnotic patten that makes everyone who sees it a suicide bomber...? " "We better draw up a new form for that one..." And thus, there is a procedure in the event of the 'Sexy Putin Allah Hypno-pocalypse.'
I guess they eventually had to put computers on Shutter Island but they really should monitor your output. Also those water cooler conversations sound exactly like non-events. I mean if this is the stuff that requires a cull then you are one messed up dude. Back to the backing up job and stop trying to be Dr Evil!
Cyber is far more likely, for a variety of reasons. First, it's not an act of war to test your offensive cyber capabilities on another nation. Second, you can reliably impact a far larger portion of a population. Third, the second order effects of your cyber attack force the government to act against, rather than for, it's own people.
Think about it, what's more damaging for the risk? Unleashing smallpox or anthrax in a few major airports (for which the US reserves the right to nuke you), or shutting off everyone's EBT (which would be considered a civil act rather than a military one)?
The more likely scenario however, from a "foreign nation attacking the US in Cyber Warfare" point of view, is much much worse than someone cutting off EBT.... I'm talking there are nations who are actively planning and trying to take out the power grid. Think about it, imagine if China were able to completely cut off ALL electrical power for the entire West Coast of the US? A couple days, nothing really changes, a month... things get bad. Six months?? you're talking total game change at that point.
Biological is harder than a lot of people think it is, which is why it hasn't been used since reliable chemical delivery was developed.
I have to ask when you think that was, as Japan used biological weapons on China, yielding about 400k to 500k killed, including weaponized Yersinia pestis.
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IGtR= wrote: I guess they eventually had to put computers on Shutter Island but they really should monitor your output. Also those water cooler conversations sound exactly like non-events. I mean if this is the stuff that requires a cull then you are one messed up dude. Back to the backing up job and stop trying to be Dr Evil!
Clearly, you have not bothered to read most of the posts in this thread to determine what we're actually talking about.
Until you do, please move along. The Egress is that way.
shasolenzabi wrote: Only 3% of the worlds' water is fresh water, the rest is brackish, dirty, or salt water.
Now dirty/brackish water can be filtered, but the filtration systems are not cheap, and that nasty water is in poor countries who will be hard pressed to pay for enough of those filter/purifiers.
Salt water is a lot of issues with de-salinization. The by-product of de-salinization is potent salts laden with chems and heavy metals that are also not safe to dispose of at such high concentrations, so sure, you solve the one problem of water to drink, but now where to dispose pf the waste materials from the process?
Of that 3% we use, some is shared not for drinking, but also laundry, dishwashing, waste, and industrial use, again, better purification and filtration will be needed to re-use some of that gray water, but many companies hate spending money on such measures and prefer the low fines for polluting rather than pay for something that stops the polluting.
Some is not for drinking? More than 2/3 of water is used in industry. Of the other third used in homes, only a few % is drunk - the rest is used in showers or sprayed on our lawns.
While future water shortages could cause problems for agriculture and industry unless new tech is developed, it's ridiculous to talk about water in terms of people running out of drinking water. And the use of water really isn't driven by population, but consumption.
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Ensis Ferrae wrote: California is majorly proving that sentiment wrong. Areas where agriculture is the main industry are seeing soil subsidence at around 1 foot per year. The aquifers that are providing that water, filled up over the course of 10k-100k years. "We" are draining it far, far faster than it can possibly be replaced, even with the expected El Nino weather coming this winter.
Which is an issue driven by water use and methods of agriculture, not population. Remember that most of the food produced is later just thrown away.
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Grey Templar wrote: The only difference between a Desalination plant and rain is that the rain is spread out over a larger area. And there will still be rain out at sea.
And the cost. Desalination costs about 50c per cubic metre, which becomes a very big number when you look at making desalination a primary source of water.
And sure, it can cause harm to some delicate ecosystems down there, but really where should our priorities be? Some little ocean lifeforms which are cool, but ultimately aren't helping us
I don't think you have any idea at all about how oceans work.
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BaronIveagh wrote: Yes, because Jim the garbage man is special and elite because he rolled a 10. The supposition being that the 10% that live are selected in a purely random way.
"I don't want to kill poor people, I'm not a monster. I plan to kill randomly, it's the humane way."
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BaronIveagh wrote: so how's Freddy Mercury doing these days? Talked to Rock Hudson lately? Read anything new by Issac Asimov?
Modern medicine does have limits.
Umm, you might want to look at the relative survival rates for AIDS in rich and poor countries before you try that argument.
IGtR= wrote: I guess they eventually had to put computers on Shutter Island but they really should monitor your output.
I got reminded today why this would not work. Our boss came back from a trip to SOG today and had us, at the request of someone further up the chain, draw up a new readiness plan.
You'll be glad to know that now I am to keep hard copies of my last three performance evaluations at my desk, in the event that they have some bearing on my fate, should I be at my cubical on Judgement Day, should the apocalypse of Saint John come to pass, so that the Prince of Peace can review them on his way through. Should the Rapture occur, we are permitted to, assuming that the boss has just translated to heaven (something I find more questionable than the idea of honesty in government), drive the VIP shuttle to the front gates in order to expedite the King of Kings access to our facility, should we get the go ahead from Baltimore or Washington.
I rate this one up there with the one to redeploy our security staff around the interior of the facility in the event of an attack by Mole Men, also someone in the capital's idea.
I think the guys that draw up our budget are just seeing what hoops they can make the boss jump through.
sebster wrote: "I don't want to kill poor people, I'm not a monster. I plan to kill randomly, it's the humane way."
No, the humane way is if it doesn't hurt. The fair way is if everyone has an equal shot.
BaronIveagh wrote: No, the humane way is if it doesn't hurt. The fair way is if everyone has an equal shot.
Uh huh. And of course fairness is the only priority, and other notions like the avoidance of suffering just don’t factor in at all. So much so that it makes perfect sense to initiate the deaths of billions of people just to make sure it happens fairly, rather than to hope there is no apocalypse, let alone actually try to prevent it.
At first I thought the craziest thing about this was the conviction that an apocalypse was inevitable. But holy crap the rabbit hole goes so much deeper.
If you look at it in the mid 1980s to early 1990s, however, you're looking at very similar survival numbers.across the board.
Only if you look at treatment. Effective methods of prevention were established and effective in the mid-80s, in ways that developing countries still haven’t reached. Similarly, your hope for this ‘fair’ slaughter relies not only on medicine being unable to cure it, but also to fail to figure out how to prevent it. Because if either of those things become possible, then it is the rich who will be best positioned to use whatever medicine discovers.
After some serious thought, I have a counter proposal. What if humanity was reduced to 10% of it's current clothing? Would this be a good thing for the long term survival of mankind?
sebster wrote: Uh huh. And of course fairness is the only priority, and other notions like the avoidance of suffering just don’t factor in at all. So much so that it makes perfect sense to initiate the deaths of billions of people just to make sure it happens fairly, rather than to hope there is no apocalypse, let alone actually try to prevent it.
Well, frankly, we looked at prevention first:
Ever try to convince people to stop screwing? Forced sterilization will never be a viable plan in the West. You'd have people screaming 'eugenics' in a heartbeat.
Even the sunniest numbers for space colonies, if we started *right now* would barely be able to feed themselves in the time-frame we're looking at, let lone export food back to Earth.
Given the limitations on yield, hydroponics and other alternative ways to cultivate crops might give another five years at best, and that's if you began a project on a scale that hasn't been seen since the Panama Canal.
Aquacologies really wouldn't help due to limited fresh water playing a role in said disaster.
We also considered 'close our eyes and hope it goes away' but that hasn't worked yet in the history of humanity, so...
At first I thought the craziest thing about this was the conviction that an apocalypse was inevitable. But holy crap the rabbit hole goes so much deeper.
And denial is not just a river in Egypt.
As far as medicine not being able to do anything about it, if a pathogen is sufficiently fast spreading and sufficiently lethal, then, yes, there isn't a whole lot they can do about it, other than try and isolate the victims. If there is a long period between becoming infectious and symptom onset, then even that does not work well. Ideally, the whole thing would be over in a week at most.
As far as medicine not being able to do anything about it, if a pathogen is sufficiently fast spreading and sufficiently lethal, then, yes, there isn't a whole lot they can do about it, other than try and isolate the victims. If there is a long period between becoming infectious and symptom onset, then even that does not work well. Ideally, the whole thing would be over in a week at most.
The only way you could control a pathogen virulent enough to eliminate 90% of the human population in that time frame is to develop, and deploy a form of vaccination before hand; so its a fair bet a cure would also exist. Moreover, for that to work in the context of your argument you would have to find a way of randomly immunizing only 10% of the population without doing anything to alert people to the coming of the apocalypse. Hell, even if you managed to do that the nature of vacination infrastructure pretty much means that most of the 10% who survived would be in developed nations.
And that's before we get into the possibility of the pathogen mutating, and God forbid it jumps species as a result.
Might it not be better to solve the resource issue by reducing the consumption of the average human, rather than reduce the humans?
The losers would simply be hardwired into the internet, and have their wasteful bodies eliminated. Then just keep their minds alive as long as they are sane, or needed.
Artist rendition.
I know, the obvious objection is that we don't have the technology to do this reliably. But it has some chance of success- and if it doesn't work, 90% of the population is eliminated anyways. A terrible, bureaucratic win/win situation.
Otherwise, it seems like this could be an ideal situation to put the socal ordering plan put forth in Battle Royale and the Hunger Games into effect, with the survivor of each 10 person match simply being awarded all of the possessions of the other 9.
Wyrmalla wrote: Hmn, perhaps already said, but its nice to see this thread on the same page as the anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
I might point out that those bombings, horrible as they were, saved millions more lives than they ended. The Japanese army's plan to defend the home islands (Operation Ketsugō) was to use women and children as human shields and disposable troops to try and break the American's morale. Estimates for American casualties were so high that 500k Purple hearts were made in advance. The Joint Chiefs cheerily estimated 1.7-4 million US casualties before the fighting ended, with a large section of Japan being entirely depopulated.
Truman made the right choice and saved millions of American and Japanese lives.
dogma wrote: ...the obvious way to avert massive amounts of death, is to cause massive amounts of death.
No. to save mankind, we'll have to kill a lot of people.
The only way you could control a pathogen virulent enough to eliminate 90% of the human population in that time frame is to develop, and deploy a form of vaccination before hand; so its a fair bet a cure would also exist. Moreover, for that to work in the context of your argument you would have to find a way of randomly immunizing only 10% of the population without doing anything to alert people to the coming of the apocalypse. Hell, even if you managed to do that the nature of vacination infrastructure pretty much means that most of the 10% who survived would be in developed nations.
Actually you can do it by tainting or replacing the supply of another vaccine, one commonly distributed by the ICRC.
Or you could make it pnumonic, aim for about 75% and hope for the best. The 'how' really isn't important as the effect.
Ever try to convince people to stop screwing? Forced sterilization will never be a viable plan in the West. You'd have people screaming 'eugenics' in a heartbeat.
Even the sunniest numbers for space colonies, if we started *right now* would barely be able to feed themselves in the time-frame we're looking at, let lone export food back to Earth.
Given the limitations on yield, hydroponics and other alternative ways to cultivate crops might give another five years at best, and that's if you began a project on a scale that hasn't been seen since the Panama Canal.
Aquacologies really wouldn't help due to limited fresh water playing a role in said disaster.
And now we're back to the impending global food shortage. We must have gone back in time to 1973, and no-one told me. How rude.
Anyhow, go and read. Learn about the vast oversupply of food we have. We could feed 20 billion with what we produce, if we were more efficient. This fantasy that we'd have billions starving to death relies on the assumption that we'd still be throwing away most of our fresh produce, and giving most of our grain to livestock for slaughter, instead of using it to feed people... it's completely absurd.
We also considered 'close our eyes and hope it goes away' but that hasn't worked yet in the history of humanity, so...
No, I just think its really quite insane to commit genocide in order to avoid a potential genocide. The fact that your suggested genocide is unlikely enough to be almost impossible doesn't really matter, as long as it is in any way uncertain then committing genocide in order to avoid possible genocide makes no sense.
But I think you know that. I certainly don't believe I have to explain it to you as a new concept. I think you ignore it, because you like to play at being the hard man with the hard solution.
sebster wrote: Anyhow, go and read. Learn about the vast oversupply of food we have. We could feed 20 billion with what we produce, if we were more efficient.
Wow, that's an if you could hide Mount Everest behind. And thus far, everything I've found to read on this subject has said 'nope, 10 billion'. so you'll have to point me to these other numbers you seem to believe exist.
No, I just think its really quite insane to commit genocide in order to avoid a potential genocide.
As Ironcaptain has been quick to point out on occasion, genocide requires that you be killing a particular race or creed. This is 'mass murder' to prevent the destruction of civilization.
sebster wrote: But I think you know that. I certainly don't believe I have to explain it to you as a new concept. I think you ignore it, because you like to play at being the hard man with the hard solution.
The point was that the mass death itself was entirely hypothetical until people started demanding to know how it would be done (and why) rather than address the issue of whether or not 10% was enough survivors to keep civilization going. Which was the topic of the thread.
Which I think says more about the other posters here than it does me. Yourself included.
BaronIveagh wrote: The point was that the mass death itself was entirely hypothetical until people started demanding to know how it would be done (and why) rather than address the issue of whether or not 10% was enough survivors to keep civilization going. Which was the topic of the thread.
Which I think says more about the other posters here than it does me. Yourself included.
That's like someone starting a thread on the recent Planned Parenthood videos and then complaining about how the other posters talked about PP and abortion rather than video edits when "they just wanted to talk about the editing techniques used". In starting a thread talking about 90% of the world dying off, you can't then complain when a part of the discussion evolves into how this fantastical scenario can come about, and the specifics behind it. Doing so is in fact quite rude, as if you're saying "man all you people are bloodthirsty bastards, I just wanted to talk about how the world will work after 90% of the people have magically died, I didn't want to think about the moment beforehand and how this will come to past, you're all terrible and I'm great, especially you."
whembly wrote: I'm still not convinced that we're anywhere CLOSE to being over populated.
We're not. The only reason there are appearances that this could be true, is in the distribution of "living" goods (food, clean water, that sort of thing)
In starting a thread talking about 90% of the world dying off, you can't then complain when a part of the discussion evolves into how this fantastical scenario can come about, and the specifics behind it.
Yes, but mocking the person who makes a suggestion about how it might happen is A-OK I guess.
motyak wrote: Doing so is in fact quite rude, as if you're saying "man all you people are bloodthirsty bastards, I just wanted to talk about how the world will work after 90% of the people have magically died, I didn't want to think about the moment beforehand and how this will come to past, you're all terrible and I'm great, especially you."
And yet, it's perfectly acceptable for them to ask how it came about, have me make a suggestion, and decry me for 'a bloodthirsty bastard' for suggesting it might work out for the best. It's perfectly acceptable for me to correct (most likely deliberate) Sebster's misuse of a word, and have him turn it into a thinly veiled insinuation that I'm proposing torturing everyone to death. It's Ok to start squawking "Godwin, Godwin!" when I suggest that such a scenario would improve mankind's long term survival chances, even though the act which would cause it would be horrible in the extreme.
I'm not a big fan of Iron_Captain, he and I disagree on a lot of issues, but at least he was polite. Sebster just came to derail the thread and try and start a fight.
If you don't belive me, this is his first post.:
sebster wrote: This topic is fething flying rodent gak. I mean, even ignoring the fairly significant moral issues with killing more than 5 billion people, the actual logic underpinning it is gibberish. In fact, even ignoring the unstated and highly dubious assumptions about sustainability, and even ignoring that resource use is driven more by living standards than population numbers, it's still complete and utter gibberish.
The thing about having 7 billion people is that if gak goes bad and that population proves unsustainable, then it will reduce to a sustainable level by itself. You don't have to pre-empt that by killing people - if it did ever happen the problem would sort itself out.
Effectively the premise in the OP is that we have to kill people now to prevent people possibly dying later. It's fething nuts.
whembly wrote: Seems like M. Night Shaylaman's "The Happening" plot.
I've seen a lot more terrible Bond movies than I've seen terrible Shyamalan movies
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BaronIveagh wrote: Wow, that's an if you could hide Mount Everest behind. And thus far, everything I've found to read on this subject has said 'nope, 10 billion'. so you'll have to point me to these other numbers you seem to believe exist.
First up, the existance of an 'if', any 'if' at all, is enough to make your whole premise completely deranged. Because it turns your logic in to 'we have to commit genocide in order to prevent a possible genocide'.
Second up, holy crap please fething read something fething please. Are you seriously claiming you have no idea about food wastage figures? And even if you've never heard of the inefficiency of livestock food sources compared to grain, it shouldn't take more than three seconds to intuit how much you can save by no longer feeding grain to the herd for months before eating the herd, and instead just eating the grain. But you just won't do that, because you've got a fantasy genocide to dream about.
As Ironcaptain has been quick to point out on occasion, genocide requires that you be killing a particular race or creed. This is 'mass murder' to prevent the destruction of civilization.
Oh look, pedantry as well all the rest.
Which I think says more about the other posters here than it does me. Yourself included.
All it says about me is that when crazy turns up on dakka I just can't stop digging until the end. Which I think we all knew already.
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BaronIveagh wrote: And yet, it's perfectly acceptable for them to ask how it came about, have me make a suggestion, and decry me for 'a bloodthirsty bastard' for suggesting it might work out for the best. It's perfectly acceptable for me to correct (most likely deliberate) Sebster's misuse of a word, and have him turn it into a thinly veiled insinuation that I'm proposing torturing everyone to death. It's Ok to start squawking "Godwin, Godwin!" when I suggest that such a scenario would improve mankind's long term survival chances, even though the act which would cause it would be horrible in the extreme.
This is the first claim you made in your OP;
"The central supposition is that if all humanity were reduced to 10% of it's current population (evenly) that this would be a good thing for the long term survival of humankind."
I can put the appropriate response more politely if you want. Good, gentle and mannered sir, if I could be presumptive enough to give my own humble opinion of your premise, I must tell you that it is fething nuts.
But it isn't really politeness that you're worried about. Its the 'fething nuts' part that actually bothers you. But describing it any other way wouldn't be honest.
Ever try to convince people to stop screwing? Forced sterilization will never be a viable plan in the West. You'd have people screaming 'eugenics' in a heartbeat.
Even the sunniest numbers for space colonies, if we started *right now* would barely be able to feed themselves in the time-frame we're looking at, let lone export food back to Earth.
Given the limitations on yield, hydroponics and other alternative ways to cultivate crops might give another five years at best, and that's if you began a project on a scale that hasn't been seen since the Panama Canal.
Aquacologies really wouldn't help due to limited fresh water playing a role in said disaster.
And now we're back to the impending global food shortage. We must have gone back in time to 1973, and no-one told me. How rude.
Anyhow, go and read. Learn about the vast oversupply of food we have. We could feed 20 billion with what we produce, if we were more efficient. This fantasy that we'd have billions starving to death relies on the assumption that we'd still be throwing away most of our fresh produce, and giving most of our grain to livestock for slaughter, instead of using it to feed people... it's completely absurd.
We also considered 'close our eyes and hope it goes away' but that hasn't worked yet in the history of humanity, so...
No, I just think its really quite insane to commit genocide in order to avoid a potential genocide. The fact that your suggested genocide is unlikely enough to be almost impossible doesn't really matter, as long as it is in any way uncertain then committing genocide in order to avoid possible genocide makes no sense.
But I think you know that. I certainly don't believe I have to explain it to you as a new concept. I think you ignore it, because you like to play at being the hard man with the hard solution.
Very well put. I have helped get produce and other food items that a single grocery store gets rid of weekly due to the fact the expectation dates on it are near out to people who need it. It was quite the eye opener when I saw a 30 by 40 area on my driveway covered with just about any kind of food you could imagine. One store, one week's worth of food, free for the taking.. I would invite anyone here to see this for themselves or just ask a manager how much food gets thrown out on a weekly basis. That isn't even going into the science experiments that are many people's refrigerators.
Or you could make it pnumonic, aim for about 75% and hope for the best. The 'how' really isn't important as the effect.
Actually, the "how" is extremely important, as it largely determines if the effect is achievable, and controllable. This is especially true when you're talking about killing 90% of all human beings. Seriously, the only reasonable argument you could possibly make for deliberately wiping out a large chunk of the population is that you would be able to control the overall death toll, once you start to fall back on "hope for the best" you lose that completely.
sebster wrote: Does anyone feel this is starting to sound like plot of a weaker James Bond movie?
Actually, the "how" is extremely important, as it largely determines if the effect is achievable, and controllable. This is especially true when you're talking about killing 90% of all human beings. Seriously, the only reasonable argument you could possibly make for deliberately wiping out a large chunk of the population is that you would be able to control the overall death toll
The problem with any disease is that you'd never get exactly a specific number of people. Even one absurdly lethal. Why? Because you'd always have islands someplace where it never showed up, or areas where the population is too diffuse to spread it. Highly lethal diseases tend to burn themselves out fairly quickly. A disease 90% effective in the lab might only be 60-75% effective in the field. Some subset of the population might have, as was pointed out earlier, a mutation that allows them a greater level of resistance to it,.
And if it's proving that lethal, even after the initial onset, doctors will be working hard to make sure it does not come back.
Very well put. I have helped get produce and other food items that a single grocery store gets rid of weekly due to the fact the expectation dates on it are near out to people who need it. It was quite the eye opener when I saw a 30 by 40 area on my driveway covered with just about any kind of food you could imagine. One store, one week's worth of food, free for the taking.. I would invite anyone here to see this for themselves or just ask a manager how much food gets thrown out on a weekly basis. That isn't even going into the science experiments that are many people's refrigerators.
According to a recent UN report, at the current rate of soil degradation, Africa will only be able to feed 75% of it's current population by 2025. Some areas (the US) may be fine for quite some time to come. More and more countries though are shifting from exporting grain to importing it. This has always been a thing with smaller countries, but larger and larger ones are slowly making this shift. I'm sure you'll say 'So what'? Well, the reason for this shift is that they cannot produce enough grain on their own to feed their population, so they import it.
" According to a recent UN report, at the current rate of soil degradation, Africa will only be able to feed 75% of it's current population by 2025. Some areas (the US) may be fine for quite some time to come. More and more countries though are shifting from exporting grain to importing it. This has always been a thing with smaller countries, but larger and larger ones are slowly making this shift. I'm sure you'll say 'So what'? Well, the reason for this shift is that they cannot produce enough grain on their own to feed their population, so they import it. "
You are aware that there are almost constant advances in the efficiency of agriculture, the genetics of crops, the efficiency of distribution, and that Malthus has generally been demonstrated to be false. Famines are caused by a lack of food in a particular place not by a lack of food. Canada, Russia, the US, other large countries are slowing agricultural production due to economic forces rather than because OMG WE'RE ALL STARVING KILL 90% NOW OR DOOOOM! Its a completely ridiculous argument and if you had any knowledge of agricultural science then you would know that the above assertion of soil degradation and reduced supply is no cause for concern on a macro scale.
And this is not to even touch on what could be achieved if we completely revolutionised how we eat and what we eat. Stop overfeeding the Western world. People don't need to eat too much and then exercise heavily to stay fit and healthy. Regulate intake. Alter prices and make the market more efficient. Start producing food in the sea, algae, seaweed, massive farms, etc. Find more calorific food sources that are less resource intensive. Farm on top of every urban building. Set up conveyer farms and multi-storey farming, farm more locally and stop wasting huge resources on transport. Or have a huge global supply chain that is well managed and coherent so as to minimise spoilage. There are literally infinite improvements to be had on the current model. And the current model is still doing pretty well and giving us more food than we need.
Or just kill 90% of people. That is a lazy, unnecessary and megalomaniacal solution. I'm amazed we at Dakka can even be bothered to engage with your insistent stupidity.
BaronIveagh wrote: Splitting this off from another thread which was getting OT.
The central supposition is that if all humanity were reduced to 10% of it's current population (evenly) that this would be a good thing for the long term survival of humankind. There are some who disagree with this statement, and we'll let them explain their positions. Brace yourself for doomsday and end of the world scenarios.
If we stopped throwing away food, there would be no reason for anyone in the US to ever go hungry.
Watch this. WATCH IT! It has F-Bombs and gak! And the guy is from the UK, so he sounds smart AND funny!
Mate, just to point out, there's a neat little "quote" button at the top of each person's post.... It makes is a million times better, and easier to read and differentiate between what you're saying and who you're quoting.
That still isn't random. For example, in developed countries, you would see a disproportionate number of very young and very old people survive, as they are the people most likely to receive vaccines. The same applies to aid workers in foreign countries, those who travel abroad frequently, and a host of other groups.
If you truly are shooting for a random distribution of survivors lacing vaccines will not work.
The problem with any disease is that you'd never get exactly a specific number of people.
Which is exactly why no one, anywhere, should be deliberately trying to create a pathogen with the intent of releasing it as a means of population control.
BaronIveagh wrote: Splitting this off from another thread which was getting OT.
The central supposition is that if all humanity were reduced to 10% of it's current population (evenly) that this would be a good thing for the long term survival of humankind. There are some who disagree with this statement, and we'll let them explain their positions. Brace yourself for doomsday and end of the world scenarios.
If we stopped throwing away food, there would be no reason for anyone in the US to ever go hungry.
Watch this. WATCH IT! It has F-Bombs and gak! And the guy is from the UK, so he sounds smart AND funny!
j
This video beautifully illustrates what I was talking about earlier with the amount of food stores throw out and people waste. Food banks will reject this food outright, even if someone came on their knees offering it, because they worry about liability. The amount of stuff I was dealing with that stores threw out on a weekly basis was enough to feed at least three families for a week each.
This included bags upon bags of bread and rolls, produce, as was shown in the video, milk, canned goods, condiments, you name, it was going to be thrown away.
Good video, Kronk, it tells a lot of truths that I can personally vouch to.
Relapse wrote: Very well put. I have helped get produce and other food items that a single grocery store gets rid of weekly due to the fact the expectation dates on it are near out to people who need it. It was quite the eye opener when I saw a 30 by 40 area on my driveway covered with just about any kind of food you could imagine. One store, one week's worth of food, free for the taking.. I would invite anyone here to see this for themselves or just ask a manager how much food gets thrown out on a weekly basis. That isn't even going into the science experiments that are many people's refrigerators.
Yep. We waste vast amounts of food, and we do this largely because it is so cheap. If we start seeing increased prices, then such wastage would hit the pocket harder, and changes would come.
I am genuinely disappointed with myself for not picking that up.
BaronIveagh wrote: More and more countries though are shifting from exporting grain to importing it. This has always been a thing with smaller countries, but larger and larger ones are slowly making this shift. I'm sure you'll say 'So what'? Well, the reason for this shift is that they cannot produce enough grain on their own to feed their population, so they import it.
You know, for every piece of food imported there's a piece of food exported. It's a one for one relationship. So if there’s an increase in food importation in some countries, then we’re also seeing food exports increase in equal amounts.
You go searching around for little factoids like that because the largest, most significant figures do not support your conclusions. If you want to look at whether the world will end up with more mouths than food, then you look at population projections and food projections. Everything else is nonsense.
Relapse wrote: Very well put. I have helped get produce and other food items that a single grocery store gets rid of weekly due to the fact the expectation dates on it are near out to people who need it. It was quite the eye opener when I saw a 30 by 40 area on my driveway covered with just about any kind of food you could imagine. One store, one week's worth of food, free for the taking.. I would invite anyone here to see this for themselves or just ask a manager how much food gets thrown out on a weekly basis. That isn't even going into the science experiments that are many people's refrigerators.
Yep. We waste vast amounts of food, and we do this largely because it is so cheap. If we start seeing increased prices, then such wastage would hit the pocket harder, and changes would come.
Wyrmalla wrote: Hmn, perhaps already said, but its nice to see this thread on the same page as the anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
I might point out that those bombings, horrible as they were, saved millions more lives than they ended. The Japanese army's plan to defend the home islands (Operation Ketsugō) was to use women and children as human shields and disposable troops to try and break the American's morale. Estimates for American casualties were so high that 500k Purple hearts were made in advance. The Joint Chiefs cheerily estimated 1.7-4 million US casualties before the fighting ended, with a large section of Japan being entirely depopulated.
Truman made the right choice and saved millions of American and Japanese lives.
We have been over this in the other thread, and the bombs did not save anyone. Japan would have ended the war regardless of the nuclear bombings.
dogma wrote: ...the obvious way to avert massive amounts of death, is to cause massive amounts of death.
No. to save mankind, we'll have to kill a lot of people.
Seriously, you sound like a stereotypical villain from some idiotic novel when you say that! This is officially the most insane idea I have ever hear (and that includes the ideas of V. V. Zhirinovsky) You haven't even explained yet why killing 90% of people would save "mankind" or how "mankind" would be saved by doing this, or what "mankind" needs saving from in the first place! Methinks you just want to see a lot of people dead. How can mankind be saved if you are killing 90%? That is not saving, that is making you the biggest threat to the survival of mankind!
Secondly, even when going with the ridiculous idea of this 'purge', I object to your notion that it should be a random 10% that survives. I'd propose we pick just a single wealthy, developed nation that can support itself without collapsing. If you have the survivors as small, diverse groups dispersed over the planet, a lot of them will die because they are unable to support themselves and the different groups would be at each other's throats in no time because "they" are "different". One single homogenous group would have far more chances to survive and reduce post-apocalyptic conflict.
Going on. I mean, my family of four wasting food because we couldn't/didn't eat it quick enough is one thing... That is a whole different level.
Another great Western propaganda article. nonetheless, disregarding the bias, the article is correct in that the destruction of the food is fething insane and that every Russian I know (including myself) is outraged about it.
Iron_Captain wrote: We have been over this in the other thread, and the bombs did not save anyone. Japan would have ended the war regardless of the nuclear bombings.
Even if you were to assume the Japanese were already practicing their signatures for the surrender documents, the war would have gone on for weeks to months. At a few thousand allied casualties a week happening in the Pacific theater, that extension of the war WOULD have entailed more casualties, so your premise is just fething silly. If the bombs ended the war even a bit sooner (and they did) they DID save people.
Iron_Captain wrote: We have been over this in the other thread, and the bombs did not save anyone. Japan would have ended the war regardless of the nuclear bombings.
Even if you were to assume the Japanese were already practicing their signatures for the surrender documents, the war would have gone on for weeks to months. At a few thousand allied casualties a week happening in the Pacific theater, that extension of the war WOULD have entailed more casualties, so your premise is just fething silly. If the bombs ended the war even a bit sooner (and they did) they DID save people.
This discussion belongs in the other thread. But I shall just say that Japan did not surrender after the nuclear bombs were dropped. Only after the Soviet invasion they suddenly surrendered, because the war with the Soviet closed of their last way of getting out of the conflict without surrender and shattered any hopes the military might have had of resisting an invasion. The nuclear bombs were not all that shocking to the Japanese, after the devastating bombardments they had already endured. The war would not have lasted a second longer if the bombs had not been dropped.
If you want to continue this discussion, I propose we do so in the relevant thread.
I was wondering if this depopulation bomb was really a pure 1/10 chance for each individual, or if it would specifically target a 1/10 ratio of survivors. The first possibility would lead to there being a 10^7000000000 chance that humanity goes through this whole cluster fudge without batting an eyelid. The second possibility would be difficult without making each person register and be administered their designated poison.
As for its effects, I will provide a helpful example using my home country, China. Over half of the population of China lives in industrialised cities with little to no training in farming and our farms have yet to catch onto the industrialised nature of the Western world. The city I live in has a population of over 10 million (a little over half that of our capital). Once your goo virus hits, we are left with one million confused people in a port town, far away from any farming location. After the stores have been looted, there will mass exoduses into the mountains by people whose training in agriculture consists of looking at textbooks depicting the peasant uprisings. There will be starvation, death, and the total collapse of our poor society, definitely not an improvement.
If you are so worried about the dangers of reaching the 10 billion population cap, how about this novel system:
The global government (UN) passes laws that encourage people to limit themselves to two children.
Services such as free education and government help programs will only be provided to families that conform to these laws.
Additional children (Thirds, Fourths, etc.) will be actively discriminated against in media to promote this view.
After the technology is in place to create offworld colonies, then the laws can be repealed and the excess population sent to space.
the Signless wrote: I was wondering if this depopulation bomb was really a pure 1/10 chance for each individual, or if it would specifically target a 1/10 ratio of survivors. The first possibility would lead to there being a 10^7000000000 chance that humanity goes through this whole cluster fudge without batting an eyelid. The second possibility would be difficult without making each person register and be administered their designated poison.
As for its effects, I will provide a helpful example using my home country, China. Over half of the population of China lives in industrialised cities with little to no training in farming and our farms have yet to catch onto the industrialised nature of the Western world. The city I live in has a population of over 10 million (a little over half that of our capital). Once your goo virus hits, we are left with one million confused people in a port town, far away from any farming location. After the stores have been looted, there will mass exoduses into the mountains by people whose training in agriculture consists of looking at textbooks depicting the peasant uprisings. There will be starvation, death, and the total collapse of our poor society, definitely not an improvement.
If you are so worried about the dangers of reaching the 10 billion population cap, how about this novel system:
The global government (UN) passes laws that encourage people to limit themselves to two children.
Services such as free education and government help programs will only be provided to families that conform to these laws.
Additional children (Thirds, Fourths, etc.) will be actively discriminated against in media to promote this view.
After the technology is in place to create offworld colonies, then the laws can be repealed and the excess population sent to space.
I am glad you posted, since it would be enlightening to know the history of the two child policy and what was done for it to gain the traction it did in China. I confess ignorance of most the subject, but I don't know how such a thing would go down here in the U.S. There would probably be open rebellion if it were tried here.
Is this article accurate as far as China is concerned?
the Signless wrote: I was wondering if this depopulation bomb was really a pure 1/10 chance for each individual, or if it would specifically target a 1/10 ratio of survivors. The first possibility would lead to there being a 10^7000000000 chance that humanity goes through this whole cluster fudge without batting an eyelid. The second possibility would be difficult without making each person register and be administered their designated poison.
As for its effects, I will provide a helpful example using my home country, China. Over half of the population of China lives in industrialised cities with little to no training in farming and our farms have yet to catch onto the industrialised nature of the Western world. The city I live in has a population of over 10 million (a little over half that of our capital). Once your goo virus hits, we are left with one million confused people in a port town, far away from any farming location. After the stores have been looted, there will mass exoduses into the mountains by people whose training in agriculture consists of looking at textbooks depicting the peasant uprisings. There will be starvation, death, and the total collapse of our poor society, definitely not an improvement.
If you are so worried about the dangers of reaching the 10 billion population cap, how about this novel system:
The global government (UN) passes laws that encourage people to limit themselves to two children.
Services such as free education and government help programs will only be provided to families that conform to these laws.
Additional children (Thirds, Fourths, etc.) will be actively discriminated against in media to promote this view.
After the technology is in place to create offworld colonies, then the laws can be repealed and the excess population sent to space.
I am glad you posted, since it would be enlightening to know the history of the two child policy and what was done for it to gain the traction it did in China. I confess ignorance of most the subject, but I don't know how such a thing would go down here in the U.S. There would probably be open rebellion if it were tried here.
Is this article accurate as far as China is concerned?
Actually we have a one child policy. I was describing the society from Ender's Game where they had to deal with the same resource problem that OP is declaring.
Mr. Burning wrote: I guess that, in the event this happened as planned, there will still be a major problem with regards to the worlds remaining resources.
10% of humanity remains.
That's a flat out delusional lie that the OP thinks is fact, or is trying to put forward as fact. If even only 50% of humanity dies, there's enough resources left under our planets surface to jump start 3 industrial revolutions. Not including resources we can salvage on the surface. Resource scarcity is a problem when the population is larger than the technology for production can sustain. If the population goes down, everyone that's been complaining about scarcity will suddenly find themselves with an abundant amount. And as technology progresses, the ability for further production increases, giving us access to previously inaccessible wells of resources. So, long term, say a century or two, it won't be as big a problem as most people say it would.
This isn't the only thing the OP is completely wrong about btw. A lot of the statements he's put on this thread is a load of cow doodle.
the Signless wrote: I was wondering if this depopulation bomb was really a pure 1/10 chance for each individual, or if it would specifically target a 1/10 ratio of survivors. The first possibility would lead to there being a 10^7000000000 chance that humanity goes through this whole cluster fudge without batting an eyelid. The second possibility would be difficult without making each person register and be administered their designated poison.
As for its effects, I will provide a helpful example using my home country, China. Over half of the population of China lives in industrialised cities with little to no training in farming and our farms have yet to catch onto the industrialised nature of the Western world. The city I live in has a population of over 10 million (a little over half that of our capital). Once your goo virus hits, we are left with one million confused people in a port town, far away from any farming location. After the stores have been looted, there will mass exoduses into the mountains by people whose training in agriculture consists of looking at textbooks depicting the peasant uprisings. There will be starvation, death, and the total collapse of our poor society, definitely not an improvement.
If you are so worried about the dangers of reaching the 10 billion population cap, how about this novel system:
The global government (UN) passes laws that encourage people to limit themselves to two children.
Services such as free education and government help programs will only be provided to families that conform to these laws.
Additional children (Thirds, Fourths, etc.) will be actively discriminated against in media to promote this view.
After the technology is in place to create offworld colonies, then the laws can be repealed and the excess population sent to space.
I am glad you posted, since it would be enlightening to know the history of the two child policy and what was done for it to gain the traction it did in China. I confess ignorance of most the subject, but I don't know how such a thing would go down here in the U.S. There would probably be open rebellion if it were tried here.
Is this article accurate as far as China is concerned?
Actually we have a one child policy. I was describing the society from Ender's Game where they had to deal with the same resource problem that OP is declaring.
Is there a planned population level where the one child policy is going to be revised or abandoned?
jwr wrote: Cyber is far more likely, for a variety of reasons. First, it's not an act of war to test your offensive cyber capabilities on another nation. Second, you can reliably impact a far larger portion of a population. Third, the second order effects of your cyber attack force the government to act against, rather than for, it's own people.
Think about it, what's more damaging for the risk? Unleashing smallpox or anthrax in a few major airports (for which the US reserves the right to nuke you), or shutting off everyone's EBT (which would be considered a civil act rather than a military one)?
Realistically, the mayhem a cyber attack would have on most first world nations would be temporary at best. The worst thing that could happen to a first world nation is information leak. But smart people don't keep important information on public networks. You'd have closed system servers for that stuff. Economic collapse would be imminent if counter-measures aren't in place, and the people responsible for dealing with such catastrophes aren't doing a good job. But we know most first world nations have counter-measures. The U.S. has some of the most sophisticated ones. After all, the CIA are probably the number one pioneers of all manners of information technology and surveillance, although they'll never admit it. but as far as shutting down the population financially goes? Short term, it'll be pretty bad. Not even close to crippling though. The physical realm still exists. And people will repair the damage, re-network everything. Attacking a country through cyber warfare is a sound strategy, but don't forget, if you want to beat a country, you still have to worry about their guns.
jwr wrote: Cyber is far more likely, for a variety of reasons. First, it's not an act of war to test your offensive cyber capabilities on another nation. Second, you can reliably impact a far larger portion of a population. Third, the second order effects of your cyber attack force the government to act against, rather than for, it's own people.
Think about it, what's more damaging for the risk? Unleashing smallpox or anthrax in a few major airports (for which the US reserves the right to nuke you), or shutting off everyone's EBT (which would be considered a civil act rather than a military one)?
Realistically, the mayhem a cyber attack would have on most first world nations would be temporary at best.
....
Attacking a country through cyber warfare is a sound strategy, but don't forget, if you want to beat a country, you still have to worry about their guns.
The cyber attack itself isn't the issue, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects. If you can create a mass panic, better yet, a mass uprising, that country is now pointing their guns inside instead of outside. Lets assume country X wants to displace the US as the world's leading power. You don't need to defeat the US in an actual war; you just need the voters to replace enough globalists with isolationists. The US is globalist via a big active military. You create conditions for the military to temporarily act against the populace, they elect politicians who don't think a big military is a great idea anymore, smaller military = smaller global presence = someone else can fill the void.
The initial impact doesn't have to be persistent, it simply has to start the fire, like a lit cigarette thrown out the car window.
jwr wrote: The cyber attack itself isn't the issue, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects. If you can create a mass panic, better yet, a mass uprising, that country is now pointing their guns inside instead of outside. Lets assume country X wants to displace the US as the world's leading power. You don't need to defeat the US in an actual war; you just need the voters to replace enough globalists with isolationists. The US is globalist via a big active military. You create conditions for the military to temporarily act against the populace, they elect politicians who don't think a big military is a great idea anymore, smaller military = smaller global presence = someone else can fill the void.
The initial impact doesn't have to be persistent, it simply has to start the fire, like a lit cigarette thrown out the car window.
Sort of. I agree that secondary effects are hugely important, but I think underlying your post, and especially in your example, is that the secondary effects are controllable, or even knowable. You might be able to create the conditions for military action, but you have no control over whether the military will act, and if they do send the tanks in, you have no idea if that will lead to the electorate rejecting a big military - they might instead become more militant.
That's what I hate about so much fiction, especially fiction centred around a big elaborate plot - they always rely on everyone outside of the plan responding in the exact right way to make everything fall in to place.
jwr wrote: The cyber attack itself isn't the issue, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects. If you can create a mass panic, better yet, a mass uprising, that country is now pointing their guns inside instead of outside. Lets assume country X wants to displace the US as the world's leading power. You don't need to defeat the US in an actual war; you just need the voters to replace enough globalists with isolationists. The US is globalist via a big active military. You create conditions for the military to temporarily act against the populace, they elect politicians who don't think a big military is a great idea anymore, smaller military = smaller global presence = someone else can fill the void.
The initial impact doesn't have to be persistent, it simply has to start the fire, like a lit cigarette thrown out the car window.
Sort of. I agree that secondary effects are hugely important, but I think underlying your post, and especially in your example, is that the secondary effects are controllable, or even knowable. You might be able to create the conditions for military action, but you have no control over whether the military will act, and if they do send the tanks in, you have no idea if that will lead to the electorate rejecting a big military - they might instead become more militant.
That's what I hate about so much fiction, especially fiction centred around a big elaborate plot - they always rely on everyone outside of the plan responding in the exact right way to make everything fall in to place.
Well, nobody ever writes about the epic plan that failed.
Well, nobody ever writes about the epic plan that failed.
Except that the majority of stories involve the Bad Guy™ getting his/her plan foiled... so I'd say a fair bit is written about the "failed" plan
Also, as I mentioned earlier, a Cyber attack of significance against the power structure (electricity here) would be devastating. Imagine what would happen if suddenly the entire western part of the US had no electricity. Or rather, they have no means of transporting it, because a cyber attack crippled the plants/networks.
If such an attack created an outage that lasted a week, it's no big deal... you start looking at a month, 3 months, 6 months or more... then you really start to see how bad that would be.
Grey Templar wrote: Well, nobody ever writes about the epic plan that failed.
It's fiction, it's measure of success is dependent on whether the writer decides it succeeds or not. The success of the plan has nothing to do with whether or not the plan is actually plausible in the real world.
Authors want plans that seem plausible, but generally that involves dressing plans up with jargon and revealing the plan to the reader in such a way that we don't notice how silly it really is. What you hardly ever see is actual plans that are sensible, because real world plans involve long lists on contigencies and lots of short term improvisation, which is really hard to make seem exciting.
jwr wrote: The cyber attack itself isn't the issue, it's the 2nd and 3rd order effects. If you can create a mass panic, better yet, a mass uprising, that country is now pointing their guns inside instead of outside. Lets assume country X wants to displace the US as the world's leading power. You don't need to defeat the US in an actual war; you just need the voters to replace enough globalists with isolationists. The US is globalist via a big active military. You create conditions for the military to temporarily act against the populace, they elect politicians who don't think a big military is a great idea anymore, smaller military = smaller global presence = someone else can fill the void.
The initial impact doesn't have to be persistent, it simply has to start the fire, like a lit cigarette thrown out the car window.
Sort of. I agree that secondary effects are hugely important, but I think underlying your post, and especially in your example, is that the secondary effects are controllable, or even knowable. You might be able to create the conditions for military action, but you have no control over whether the military will act, and if they do send the tanks in, you have no idea if that will lead to the electorate rejecting a big military - they might instead become more militant.
That's what I hate about so much fiction, especially fiction centred around a big elaborate plot - they always rely on everyone outside of the plan responding in the exact right way to make everything fall in to place.
The secondary effects are controllable, true. There's no guarantee that city X would call out the NG to respond to the riot, that the rioters would roll over the NG, that the .gov would go overboard either way in it's response (worst case is the population turns on the .mil and/or .mil turns on the .gov), and that the .gov holds to the adage "never let a good crisis go to waste". Point is, there's no ramifications on a nation for attempting to start those effects. If the desired outcome fails, it's "no harm, no foul" except for a few politicians who will demand action. If the desired outcome materializes, gain will be realized. So, while it can fail, the price to pay for that failure is miniscule compared to the potential gain.
