Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Something to clean at atmosphere of all greehouse gasses.

Like this?

https://eic.rsc.org/feature/iron-ocean-seeding/2020176.article

The population issue could be mitigated if we just found more planets to live on. For that reason, maybe we should find a way to make an FTL drive for a spaceship. The math is all there (Alcubierre's theories and equations), but we just don't have a device that can make use of it all. We probably need to make advances in other areas first of course, but FTL should be an end goal at least.

Some of the other suggestions I've seen are really good. Fusion power and better recycling (through nanotech or perhaps even engineered microbes) are both things we should pursue.

Its worth noting that "Overpopulation" is at this point in time a complete myth. We are nowhere near maximum capacity for humans in terms of food production and space. We currently produce too much food, the only reason people are starving is because they can't get to the food.

What people call "Overpopulation" is really certain countries having a population that is growing faster than there domestic food production, which is often further suppressed by food aid from places like the US. Because why grow food in Uganda when its cheaper to just buy or get handouts from America?

We have the capacity to feed billions and billions more people than are currently alive today without adding any additional farmland. We have tons of it which doesn't get used anymore because of more efficient farming practices. Which is also why we can somehow afford to build cities on top of unused farmland. The issue is that the places with the abundant farmland are also places that don't need it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its worth noting that "Overpopulation" is at this point in time a complete myth. We are nowhere near maximum capacity for humans in terms of food production and space. We currently produce too much food, the only reason people are starving is because they can't get to the food.

What people call "Overpopulation" is really certain countries having a population that is growing faster than there domestic food production, which is often further suppressed by food aid from places like the US. Because why grow food in Uganda when its cheaper to just buy or get handouts from America?

We have the capacity to feed billions and billions more people than are currently alive today without adding any additional farmland. We have tons of it which doesn't get used anymore because of more efficient farming practices. Which is also why we can somehow afford to build cities on top of unused farmland. The issue is that the places with the abundant farmland are also places that don't need it.

Or more to the point, under capitalism it's a bad thing to give food away to people who desperately need it. Or even to produce enough to feed them, lest food become so devalued that farmers cannot afford to live...

It’s even worse under socialism where you have to enslave farmers to keep them producing food because they have no incentive for continuing to make any food beyond what they need for themselves.

Wait a second... You do realize that first world countries populations tend to do go down after reaching a limit right? That is the trend people have less children because they dont need to have more for farming or other things. Our populations in major countries are down spirals.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its worth noting that "Overpopulation" is at this point in time a complete myth. We are nowhere near maximum capacity for humans in terms of food production and space. We currently produce too much food, the only reason people are starving is because they can't get to the food.

What people call "Overpopulation" is really certain countries having a population that is growing faster than there domestic food production, which is often further suppressed by food aid from places like the US. Because why grow food in Uganda when its cheaper to just buy or get handouts from America?

We have the capacity to feed billions and billions more people than are currently alive today without adding any additional farmland. We have tons of it which doesn't get used anymore because of more efficient farming practices. Which is also why we can somehow afford to build cities on top of unused farmland. The issue is that the places with the abundant farmland are also places that don't need it.

It's worth noting that you're completely wrong. Overpopulation isn't just about how much land people occupy but how much food and water they need. 1/3 of the world populaiton starves, another thinrd is undernourished. Potasble water shortages are critical in many areas. Overpopulation is a thing. case closed.

A reminder, politics is not allowed to be discussed on dakka. Please keep the discussion away from that area.

Thanks,
ingtaer

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The population issue could be mitigated if we just found more planets to live on. For that reason, maybe we should find a way to make an FTL drive for a spaceship. The math is all there (Alcubierre's theories and equations), but we just don't have a device that can make use of it all. We probably need to make advances in other areas first of course, but FTL should be an end goal at least.

Some of the other suggestions I've seen are really good. Fusion power and better recycling (through nanotech or perhaps even engineered microbes) are both things we should pursue.

Populations will be mitigated once most countries reach first world countries, people will become less reliant on well... people. and will use machines for manufacturing. Overpopulation might or might not happen especially with climate change and what they are saying we might see actual natural disasters dwindle the population on coastlines.

OR We might have Technological event that will change all of humanity (singularity event / tech apothoesis) which will make everyone instead focused more on sciences, designing, development, and less on manual labor.

Though I am sentimental SOD and like to think that certain things will bring humanity together.

 Asherian Command wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The population issue could be mitigated if we just found more planets to live on. For that reason, maybe we should find a way to make an FTL drive for a spaceship. The math is all there (Alcubierre's theories and equations), but we just don't have a device that can make use of it all. We probably need to make advances in other areas first of course, but FTL should be an end goal at least.

Some of the other suggestions I've seen are really good. Fusion power and better recycling (through nanotech or perhaps even engineered microbes) are both things we should pursue.

Populations will be mitigated once most countries reach first world countries, people will become less reliant on well... people. and will use machines for manufacturing. Overpopulation might or might not happen especially with climate change and what they are saying we might see actual natural disasters dwindle the population on coastlines.

OR We might have Technological event that will change all of humanity (singularity event / tech apothoesis) which will make everyone instead focused more on sciences, designing, development, and less on manual labor.

Though I am sentimental SOD and like to think that certain things will bring humanity together.

The trick is, reaching developed status (not first-world) requires enough money for self-sustaining economic growth. An undeveloped (not third-world) nation without significant natural resources under it's own control - as opposed to under the control of a developed nation, either directly or via muti-national corporations - can't achieve a self-sustaining economy.

The terms first, second, and third world all apply strictly to the Cold War and, despite recent common use to the contrary, have nothing to do with the economic development of the nation. A first- world nation was aligned with America and.or NATO. A second-world nation was aligned with the Soviet Union and/or China. A third-world nation aligned with neither one. So a banana republic like Panama or Nicaragua was a first-world nation, while Sweden and Switzerland were third-world nations.

The proper terms you're looking for are developed (America, Australia, most of Europe), developing (Brazil, India, Indonesia, China until recently, etc) and undeveloped nations (Nicaragua, most of Africa, Bagladesh, etc.).

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Its worth noting that "Overpopulation" is at this point in time a complete myth. We are nowhere near maximum capacity for humans in terms of food production and space. We currently produce too much food, the only reason people are starving is because they can't get to the food.

What people call "Overpopulation" is really certain countries having a population that is growing faster than there domestic food production, which is often further suppressed by food aid from places like the US. Because why grow food in Uganda when its cheaper to just buy or get handouts from America?

We have the capacity to feed billions and billions more people than are currently alive today without adding any additional farmland. We have tons of it which doesn't get used anymore because of more efficient farming practices. Which is also why we can somehow afford to build cities on top of unused farmland. The issue is that the places with the abundant farmland are also places that don't need it.

It's worth noting that you're completely wrong. Overpopulation isn't just about how much land people occupy but how much food and water they need. 1/3 of the world populaiton starves, another thinrd is undernourished. Potasble water shortages are critical in many areas. Overpopulation is a thing. case closed.

And that is exactly what I said. We have plenty of food and water in this planet. They’re just not where they are needed. That’s not a population problem, it’s a distribution problem. Overpopulation does not exist in relation to this planet. Unequal distribution of resources is what you are actually referring to.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
The population issue could be mitigated if we just found more planets to live on.

No it can't. There is no plausible way that we will be able to move enough people off our current planet to make any meaningful difference. Even the most wildly optimistic plans for space elevators and such wouldn't be able to keep up with the birth rate and maintain zero growth, forget about decreasing the total population.

The math is all there (Alcubierre's theories and equations)

In theory. Unfortunately the energy requirements are so immense that it is impossible to ever build one. Converting entire planet-size masses of antimatter into energy to move a tiny ship is not going to be a practical solution to anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
It’s even worse under socialism where you have to enslave farmers to keep them producing food because they have no incentive for continuing to make any food beyond what they need for themselves.

Or you don't have to enslave anyone, because in the absence of a profit motive to continue scarcity there's nothing standing in the way of continuing to work towards full automation of the system. You don't need much incentive to work when the only labor you require is one supervisor monitoring an entire automated farm and maybe a small repair team for the entire region. Even if you have to resort to state-enforced labor quotas for everyone it's most likely something on the scale of working a few hours once a week, hardly abusive slavery.

del

 Peregrine wrote:



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
It’s even worse under socialism where you have to enslave farmers to keep them producing food because they have no incentive for continuing to make any food beyond what they need for themselves.

Or you don't have to enslave anyone, because in the absence of a profit motive to continue scarcity there's nothing standing in the way of continuing to work towards full automation of the system. You don't need much incentive to work when the only labor you require is one supervisor monitoring an entire automated farm and maybe a small repair team for the entire region. Even if you have to resort to state-enforced labor quotas for everyone it's most likely something on the scale of working a few hours once a week, hardly abusive slavery.

That does sound pretty appealing. I can't wait for the day to arrive when we all get to transition into part time robot repair techs for Monsanto.

I love how the technology industry just assumes that no one wants to work.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I love how the technology industry just assumes that no one wants to work.

No one wants to work. That's why it's called work, and you have to pay people to do it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I love how the technology industry just assumes that no one wants to work.

No one wants to work. That's why it's called work, and you have to pay people to do it.

I’ll have to tell all the people I work with that like working that they’re wrong.

 Peregrine wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I love how the technology industry just assumes that no one wants to work.

No one wants to work. That's why it's called work, and you have to pay people to do it.

Yeah, no.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
I’ll have to tell all the people I work with that like working that they’re wrong.

Nobody likes working or they'd do it for free. People like getting paid and having money, very few people would show up to their job if the paychecks stopped coming.

That's because people like eating and not living in hedges too.

But you only have to look at an existing subset of society, the retired, to see how many people will essentially work for free to fill their time in voluntary roles etc because they feel the need to avoid boredom and contribute to society.

I understand that you can't comprehend things like people having an innate desire to produce or accomplish things, or that they may enjoy their jobs for whatever reasons, but not everyone is programmed in machine binary like you are, some of us possess human emotions.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I understand that you can't comprehend things like people having an innate desire to produce or accomplish things, or that they may enjoy their jobs for whatever reasons, but not everyone is programmed in machine binary like you are, some of us possess human emotions.

Again, if people have so much innate desire to produce and accomplish things why do their employers have to pay them to work? How many people would show up to their minimum wage fast food/retail/etc job without getting paid just because they love it so much? I think we both know it's a pretty good approximation of zero.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
But you only have to look at an existing subset of society, the retired, to see how many people will essentially work for free to fill their time in voluntary roles etc because they feel the need to avoid boredom and contribute to society.

Charity service and work are not really the same thing.

That's immaterial. It's the motivation to fill time that's at issue. Retirees returning to the work place is also a thing.

 Peregrine wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I understand that you can't comprehend things like people having an innate desire to produce or accomplish things, or that they may enjoy their jobs for whatever reasons, but not everyone is programmed in machine binary like you are, some of us possess human emotions.

Again, if people have so much innate desire to produce and accomplish things why do their employers have to pay them to work? How many people would show up to their minimum wage fast food/retail/etc job without getting paid just because they love it so much? I think we both know it's a pretty good approximation of zero.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
But you only have to look at an existing subset of society, the retired, to see how many people will essentially work for free to fill their time in voluntary roles etc because they feel the need to avoid boredom and contribute to society.

Charity service and work are not really the same thing.

People get paid for work because people have self ownership and the right to control their own labor and freely enter into contract agreements for their labor. Such labor contracts require remuneration because people's labor and the products of their labor have value. If you possess valuable labor skills and/or can produce valuable goods/services via your labor then you earn remuneration for that value. People have an innate desire to engage in commerce, which is the production and purchase of goods and services which is typically done through monetary exchange because monetary currency is the medium of exchange through which the value of labor, goods and services is measured. People get paid for their work because even the most basic, menial, easily done tasks require labor which has value.
If all money disappeared tomorrow people would still desire goods and services therefore people would be incentivized to produce goods and services in order to gain from their exchange.

Peregrine isn't saying people don't have a desire for goods and services, he's just saying people wouldn't willingly go to their jobs if they stopped getting paid. I know he says some pretty controversial things sometimes, but this definitely isn't one of them. I sure as hell wouldn't do what I do without getting paid.

Labor creates value, and employing someone is just buying their labor. One could assume that they would otherwise create value somewhere else or even for a competitor in the same market. I think it's a fundamental human drive to "work" in some sense of the word, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten very far as a species. That doesn't mean that labor creates value only in a market system, though.

I know 4 people off the top of my head that work because they enjoy working and either don’t get paid for it or don’t need the money they do get paid, i.e. compensation is not a factor for their being in the workforce.

To state “nobody likes work” is objectively and demonstrably false.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
I know 4 people off the top of my head that work because they enjoy working and either don’t get paid for it or don’t need the money they do get paid, i.e. compensation is not a factor for their being in the workforce.

To state “nobody likes work” is objectively and demonstrably false.

Fair enough.

But I think you'll agree that the people who are that lucky, that they don't need to work to live, is pretty small. And furthermore, of the people who DO have to work to live, most do not enjoy what they do at work and would not do it if they didn't get paid for it.

 Vulcan wrote:


Fair enough.

But I think you'll agree that the people who are that lucky, that they don't need to work to live, is pretty small. And furthermore, of the people who DO have to work to live, most do not enjoy what they do at work and would not do it if they didn't get paid for it.

Perhaps they would rather have a different job, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'd prefer not to work at all.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That's because people like eating and not living in hedges too.

But you only have to look at an existing subset of society, the retired, to see how many people will essentially work for free to fill their time in voluntary roles etc because they feel the need to avoid boredom and contribute to society.

I always wonder at how people start here, with a perfectly reasonable point, and then leap like Golden Age Superman to "thus our conception of work under the capitalist paradigm is the only way to achieve those goals".

"I'm choosing to spend a couple of days a week doing community work" is a far fething cry from "if I don't labour for X hours per week in my job that I hate I will starve and then die". There's is nothing whatsoever about the human impulse to engage in socially valuable activities that demands maintaining a scarcity-based economic system where workers are forced to exchange their labour for money in order to survive and, if they're lucky, scrape up some manner of joy in the little time they get to themselves outside of work.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I understand that you can't comprehend things like people having an innate desire to produce or accomplish things, or that they may enjoy their jobs for whatever reasons, but not everyone is programmed in machine binary like you are, some of us possess human emotions.

But don't possess basic civility, it seems. Also: see above. Also: it must be really nice to have a job that gives you that sense of accomplishment and achievement, but perhaps you could engage those wonderful "human emotions" for long enough to remember that the vast, vast, vast, unimaginably vast majority of people don't have that luxury. They do gak work, or boring work, or backbreaking work, usually for arsehole bosses, and often for little pay, not because they're fulfilling some deep seated desire to be productive hastag-blessed, but because they need money to continue being alive.