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 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.

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)




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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Yes because the world's existing Elites will not.use their power, money and influence to guarantee their own place in this lucky 10%.

They tried that once. During the black death. It seems that disease doesn't care how rich or powerful you are once you've caught it.

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

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Yes because the world's existing Elites will not.use their power, money and influence to guarantee their own place in this lucky 10%.

They tried that once. During the black death. It seems that disease doesn't care how rich or powerful you are once you've caught it.

That might have been true before the invention of modern medicine.

 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.


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 Iron_Captain wrote:

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.

I was talking about your magic 90% totally fair kill bug

 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.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 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?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

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?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Yes because the world's existing Elites will not.use their power, money and influence to guarantee their own place in this lucky 10%.

They tried that once. During the black death. It seems that disease doesn't care how rich or powerful you are once you've caught it.

So you want to unleash a plague on the world, do you? What will it be? Ebola? Anthrax? Bubonic plague? God, your misanthropy knows no bounds.

Does this thread count towards the Dakka Dakka bingo? Openly advocating mass murder must be a new one.

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.

 CptJake wrote:

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%.

 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.

 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.

 CptJake wrote:

No, OP is advocating a cull.

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.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

No, OP is advocating a cull.

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.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
No, OP is advocating a cull.

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.

Okay.

Why 10% of current population?

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?





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 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.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

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.

This seems relevant. From Genocide Man.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 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.

I don't like making fun of you, but you have to admit your proposition is a little... odd... to say the least.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 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.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

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.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 CptJake wrote:

No, OP is advocating a cull.

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.

Mr. Burning wrote:Why 10% of current population?

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.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

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.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

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.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

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.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Because advocating the murder of 90% of all people is actually pretty damn monstrous maybe?

Yeah, it is, but compared to the alternatives, it may be the lesser of two evils.

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.

Only on Dakka Dakka Off Topic.

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.

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...

 BaronIveagh wrote:

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.

For the sake of the surviving 10%, I really hope Baronlveagh is one of the 90%.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

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.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:

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.

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.