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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...

IN THE DISTANT FUTURE HUMANITY WILL BE TYRANIDS!

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?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 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?

Not sure about that dude...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt

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.

 shasolenzabi wrote:

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.

 shasolenzabi wrote:

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.

Might have to breed smaller humans Pinky............

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.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 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.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 shasolenzabi wrote:

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.

 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.

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.

 whembly wrote:

 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

 Soladrin wrote:
Why settle with 90%? May as well go for the full 100% if you want to save the planet.

Its not about saving the planet, its about saving the special privileged Elite 10% who get to live.

 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%.

 Desubot wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 Radiation wrote:
Isn't there a whole market of books and movies dedicated to teenage girls about this.

i must be missing the joke.

I think he means Post apacalyptic YA.

Didn't realize teenage girls were into that sort o thing

The giver
Hunger Games
The host
maze runner.

 whembly wrote:

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.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 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:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 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:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 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:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 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.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 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.

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.

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.

 Swastakowey wrote:

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.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

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.