2. What is the oldest continuous ancient civilization on Earth that is still in existence? May 17

As Jeremy Lent argues in The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning 2017, chapter 6, only one early complex society remained intact through the past thirty-five hundred years, namely China which continues to bequeath patterns of thought those in modern times need to seriously consider. Chinese culture has maintained enough cohesion through the millennia that it can rightly claim to have the oldest continuous civilization.

There is some conceptual wiggle room in defining civilization, however. I define it as a complex society complex enough to leave ruins. Was ancient Egypt one civilization or three? Culturally one, but in terms of empire-building state level complex societies it rose and fell (pulsed) three times with three intermediate periods followed by Hellenistic rule as a fourth discontinuity.

The period in China from the mid-nineteenth century to present, from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China which was fully subsumed by the global corporatocracy in the 1990s, looks like a major cultural and political discontinuity with the Qing dynasty and prior periods. Ancient China does not continue to exist and those in power today who work to grow the economy Western style do not resemble ancient Chinese ways or patterns. To the question “What is the oldest civilization on Earth?” I assumed “continuous” and “still in existence” and made a case for the Tairona. Eric Lee's answer to What is the oldest civilization on Earth?

 

3. Is civilization civilized? Jun 6

Per Wiktionary, 'civilized' suggests having a highly developed society or culture showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement that is humane, reasonable, ethical, and marked by refinement in taste and manners. So does civilization, the state of living in complex societies at the city-state or state level (above chiefdom level) select for civilized behaviors? Look around. We are eighth generation products of industrial society .

Intellectual development, if inquiry is permitted, is advanced (e.g. ancient Greece), but only for a few who would rather know than believe. Among the vast majority of people, complex society (civilization) selects for believing minds and short-term self interest. Only complex societies have developed writing systems and provided some with the leisure to write and think about what others have written, but the services the intelligentsia (our storytellers) provide may be grossly overrated by them. Science did not develop within tribal societies, but if we just end up using it to make the biosphere radioactive and turn fossil fuels into carbon dioxide with unintended consequences as usual (which could include human extinction), then better to question whether the urbanizing of humans by complex societies, given that all prior ones have collapsed or 'faded away', does more than increase pathological behaviors.

Zoologist Desmond Morris noted in his 1969 'The Human Zoo' book that aberrant behaviors commonly observed in urbanized humans are observed commonly only among zoo animals living in an unnatural environment that fails to select for 'normal' behaviors. John B. Calhoun, for over 40 years, studied the effects of urban-like environments that provided for all the material needs required by rats or mice (who, like humans, are social animals) other than illimitable space. After about eight to twelve generations, the societies collapsed due to a loss of functional 'normal' behaviors that included the ability to procreate and raise functional offspring. Within a material utopia, not unlike the consumer abundance cities currently provide for most (for a time), the rat or mouse populations went extinct. Calhoun called the loss of functional behaviors a 'behavioral sink' and humans in complex societies may be subject to the same loss of functionality over time as pathologies multiple and spread, as we become increasingly ‘civilized’. Per WHO, one quarter of humans in today’s industrial society will be impaired by (if not diagnosed with) mental illness at some period of their lives. There is no evidence that our hunter-gatherer ancestors suffered from such a loss of functionality or from similar psychosocial pathologies as they were not humans of NIMH (e.g. MGTOW). For details consider: transcript of Critical Mass, a documentary.

 

4. How do you feel about the current 7.4 billion global population increasing towards the estimated 9.8 billion limit? Jun 9

For life as we know it to continue we need to grow the economy at 3 percent (China’s GDP growth rate is down to 6.9% from expected 7–10% when their economy was doubling every 7–10 years). There are limits to how much food and other things a person can consume, so for GDP growth to continue at 3%, some population growth is required. Assume population growth is only 2%, which may require incentives to maintain, and that growth can be maintained for 2,000 years during which time some humans can be sent to other solar systems to repeat the pattern. What would be the human population? Assume a Dyson sphere is constructed and all energy produced by the sun is captured and does work before being emitted as heat (infrared energy) by the Dyson sphere. Assume all solar system resources are used out to and including the Oort Cloud. What would be the human population at a steady 2 percent rate of growth? Simple arithmetic gives the answer: about 29 trillion billion humans, or 4 billion times more than Earth supports at present. See: A Dyson Sphere is Constructed for details of we will continue to prosper (for a time).

 

5. Why does civilization fall? Jun 9

The word civilization implies a society that civilizes people [Eric Lee's answer to Is civilization civilized?], has a beneficial effect on them, but this is not obvious. So ‘complex society’ is better as no value judgments or assumptions are implied. As a science nerd I am interested in understanding why complex societies ‘collapse’ or otherwise ‘fade away’ as some would describe their descent. Over the past ten thousand years or so thousands of chiefdom-level complex societies (larger than 150 people or Dunbar’s number) have come and gone, many unnoticed by history or archaeology. State-level complex societies (city or nation) are rarer but history notes the raise and descent of over 130.

This chart from: Past Lives of Humans

A good place to start is with Joseph Tainter’s ‘The Collapse of Complex Societies’, 1988, which is a must read classic you can read here and now: https://wtf.tw/ref/tainter.pdf

His answer is complicated, but as societies become more complex they need to become more complex to persist, and there is a diminishing return on the investment in complexity that involves increased consumption of energy and resources, including human. At some point the increasing costs of complexity can’t be paid in a biophysical sense. The socioeconomic dynamic is unsustainable.

Next would be Jared Diamond on ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed’. Actually no one chooses to fail or succeed, but Diamond looks at a few examples in some detail, so good to know stuff. From biology comes the concept of overshoot which implies subsequent descent. If someone claims we humans are in overshoot, but descent never comes, then they were wrong, but if you bet your life (and that of descendants) that they are wrong, good luck with that one. A foundational starting point is to understand the exponential function, and no better source than Al Bartlett: Understanding the Exponential Function

There are Malthusian causes and concerns, and the 1972 classic is ‘The Limits to Growth’ (read it, http://www.donellameadows.org/wp...) and the 30-year update which notes that we are following the business-as-usual scenario in which climax is likely around 2030–2070, when I won’t be around, but some readers may, so read this book too. For a big-picture view to better understand these and other books, read the number one book of all time that I can strongly recommend is Donella Meadows’ book ‘Thinking in Systems: A Primer’. Read it https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf

Another answer to why complex societies fail is based on the work of John B. Calhoun, who for forty years listened to what his rats and mice were trying to tell him. He first fenced in a quarter acre to enclose rats and exclose predictors. He added some Norway rats and provided unlimited food and water. Their population grew, but leveled off as the rats formed groups of 12, the rat’s Dunbar number, around the feeders before increasing population stress interfered with their ability to reproduce. He went on, with funding from NIMH, to study the effects of high population density on rats and mice in urban-like settings that provided every material thing the rodents needed but illimitable space.

The results were troubling to Calhoun and other scientists who did not assume that humans were different in kind from all other animals. In an environment that provided for all material needs such that there could be no resource shortage to induce stress or conflict, the social system failed. Within 8 to 12 generations the population (complex society or civilization) went extinct in an environment without material shortage other than space, and without any Malthusian death (e.g. plague, starvation) other than ‘vice’ or dysfunctional behaviors. Calhoun called the increase in dysfunctional behaviors a ‘behavioral sink’ that we, the eighth generation of industrial society, appear to be circling. If humans turn out to not be smarter than yeast or rats or mice, and our collective behavioral sink goes on, we may not prosper even if the economy could provide illimitable stuff that growing consumers want. For more Calhoun: Critical Mass Transcript

 

6. Would we be able to sustain a world with over 20 billion people? Jun 9

If by ‘world’ you mean the solar system and we keep growing sustainably by building a Dyson sphere, then simple arithmetic gives the answer: about 29 trillion billion humans, or 4 billion times more than Earth supports at present. See: A Dyson Sphere is Constructed for details of how we will do it so we can continue to prosper (for a time).

 

 

7. What is systems thinking? Jun 10

Number one starting point: Donella Meadows' Thinking in Systems: A Primer, which is available online, https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf Then Principles of Systems Science (Understanding Complex Systems), but I’ve met George Mobus, so I could be biased.

 

8. What is the biggest challenge to conservation? Jun 11

My first, perhaps last, requested answer, and no reason to think I have a better answer, but I suppose I can manage different. I upvoted Gavin Boyle’s answer because it is better than I could do and need not repeat his points, so I’ll just go for ‘biggest’ challenge. The biggest picture answer is not likely to be helpful, however. I’ll offer Spinoza’s answer, as I’d put him on my top ten list of humans for insight and understanding. He didn’t say it, but a scholar said that his message to humanity could be summed up as ‘to understand something is to be delivered from it’. We are Homo narrator, the storytelling animal, and to understand something implies telling the most likely story (e.g. science, defined as ‘the endeavor to tell the most likely story’) that will reframe our actions and policies, increasing the probability that they will work and be in ours and the planet’s best long-term interest. But we’re not telling good or even sane stories. [so I Protest Inecolacy: As unsustainable denial]

We are living in what I idiosyncratically call the Euro-Sino Empire, the first to raise to global expanse. Agriculture allowed population to increase about ten fold and give raise to over a hundred empires, their raise being followed by descent [Past Lives of Humans]. Fixed villages accumulate wealth for the taking and empire-building has been selected for for about the past twelve thousand years and for the first time, empowered by fossil fuels, industrial society and its industrial agriculture has allowed for another ten fold increase in food production that increased production faster (Green Revolution) in the late 20th century and early 21st century than population in apparent violation of Malthus’ conjecture (but even if fossil fuels/energy were illimitable, industrial agriculture is unsustainable, for just one example why, groundwater pumping and surface water diversion for irrigation adds salts to soil just as Mesopotamian agriculture did that proved unsustainable—the Fertile Crescent isn’t and nothing was intentionally conserved because their system didn’t select for conservation).

But to get to the point, empire-building and the culture we are part of selects for those who look around and see a planet for the taking [David Suzuki: A Planet for the Taking], and then take it. You can’t ‘educate’ or appeal to conscious or the better angles of our nature to prevent it. The system selects for growth and its own failure, and automatically thwarts all attempts to stop it [see email to Garvin Boyle]. Understand the system, it’s dynamics, and when it fails, there will be an opportunity to foundationally change the ‘rules of the game’ such that conservation is selected for.

The Tairona civilization failed twice, but there were no other empire-builders to move in on them, so they got a third chance. Perhaps having learned the hard way, they rebuilt, changed the rules of the game, and for 1,100 years they told new stories about the structure and functioning of the Universe, and their cosmology became ‘a model for survival in that it molds individual behaviour into a plan of actions or avoidances that are oriented toward the maintenance of a viable equilibrium between Man’s demands and Nature’s resources. In this manner the individual and society at large must both carry the burden of great responsibilities which, in the Kogi view, extend not only to their society but to the whole of mankind’. The Kogi are a remnant population of Taironans whom we might be able to learn from. We haven’t yet, but it is not inconceivable that we could. [see We can learn about real solutions from these people]

Their system selects for conservation. Ours doesn’t. When there comes a teachable moment, we too can change our system. Or not. Start now to prepare information packages about what might work (conservation of information). Guess then test. As the systems ecologist H.T. Odum noted, ‘Seek out the condition now that will come anyway.’ [see Energy, Ecology & Economics]

 

9. What civilization do we live in? Jun 12

A few humans do not have, earn, or spend money, of whatever form (all are convertible one into another), but living outside any economy, neither having or wanting money, are the few (e.g. Christopher Thomas Knight), some small fraction of one percent, and currently all economies are intertwined such that virtually all humans live in one global ‘civilization’ or, less celebratory, complex society, a technoindustrial society fueled by fossil fuels or sources created by fossil fuels (e.g. dams, nuclear, wind, solar PV—no dams have ever been built using hydroelectric energy, no nuclear..., etc.).

Someone who sells curios to tourists to buy a Coke, shoes, or cigarettes is part of the global economy and all have or want to have a washing machine, bicycle or car. Nation-states, post-WWII, no longer compete to see who will runs the show, and all strive to grow the economy, stupid. The fossil-fueled growth hegemon started in Europe with the Industrial Revolution and is climaxing in the Sino region that has been growing at 7 to 15 percent late last and early this century, doubling their economy (GDP) about every 7 years (for a time), and more recently doubling their economy only every 10 years. Hence, much as the prior wood-fueled industrial empire has been called the Greco-Roman Empire, the one you live in could be called the Euro-Sino Empire. [see Euro-Sino Empire]

 

 

10. At what population will the earth reach “critical mass” and no longer be able to sustain itself? Jun 12

There is a little known documentary called ‘Critical Mass’ and there is a transcript to read. If growth can be sustained for another two thousand years, the population of the solar system would be 29 trillion billion, but then what? [A Dyson Sphere is Constructed: Zero in the universe and counting].

I’m guessing that, with low intensity agriculture in well managed agroecosysems, but factoring in environment degradation and loss of biosphere services in the last 300 years, that Earth alone could sustainably support 4–40 million humans provided that they limit the number of their pets and livestock.

Critical Mass Transcript featuring the science of John B. Calhoun, William Rees, Desmond Morris, Joseph Tainter, Herman Daly, video clips of Norman Borlaug and M. King Hubbert among others.

Note: One pixel on high-res monitor = ten years. In 100 years where will the red line be? Is 0 billion possible? How high will it have gone?

 

11. Why are populations in the industrialized world shrinking? Jun 16

Japan, which discourages immigration and has a -0.26 percent population growth rate [http://worldpopulationreview.com...], and Germany, Russia, Greece, and other areas such as Puerto Rico whose citizens can emigrate away from less prosperous circumstances or can afford to leave (e.g. Cook Islands where four times more islanders live in New Zealand than the islands) have negative population growth, while the populations in most industrialized areas are growing [Population growth rate - Country Comparison].

The rate of population growth , however, is shrinking. The reason why is usually attributed the the ‘demographic transition’, which ,however, is merely an observation that explains nothing. Almost every explanation of why is opinion-based. There is no science-based consensus, however, as to what exactly is going on, so I wouldn’t offer my opinion here. Noting that people are ‘choosing’ to do whatever (e.g. have fewer children, use social media) explains nothing as Nature often notes that humans don’t get what they want or get what they don’t want.

 

12. Will the population be more than today in the next 100 years or less? Jun 17

I'll assume that those interested in answers to this question would rather know than believe, that is, they would rather know if in a hundred years there will be about 11 billion humans (10.9 to 12 billion by 2100 range per projections [Projections of population growth - Wikipedia] with, per one projection, a 70 percent chance of continued growth after 2100) on Earth, or perhaps less. How much less? Per one estimate of concerned scientists, "suppose that the chance of extinction were 0.1% per year... the chance of extinction within the next century under this scenario is 9.5%" [http://globalprioritiesproject.o...] The point is not that there is a ten percent chance that humans will be extinct in 100 years, but that the possibility is thinkable and some scientists find it increasingly difficult not to think about. Possibilities are not certainties, however, or even probabilities, though followers of doomer guru Guy McPherson (professor emeritus of natural resources and ecology and evolutionary biology, retired, who predicted [2016] human extinction, for sure, by 2026 [Guy McPherson - RationalWiki]) may not think so.

So answers range from zero to 12 billion humans by 2119. As I have pointed out, if humans could maintain a mere 2 percent rate of economic (GNP) growth for the next two thousand years, then we would have to grow the population by 2 percent to maintain growth as there are limits to per capita consumption. At a 2 percent rate of growth we would finish building our Dyson sphere in two thousand years. And then what? [A Dyson Sphere is Constructed]

But inquiring minds want to know (not just believe what they want to). Is there any basis for, like, iterating towards a narrower range? No. Complex systems are not only more complex than we understand, but more complex than we can understand. Not everyone's best guess is equal, however, so if Justin Bieber, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Eminem, and Ivana Trump agree that in 100 years there will be.... does it matter? Who's on the other thin edge of the bell curve? Well, your guess is as good as mine... or maybe it isn't. I'd go with a list of mostly system scientists [The Ecolate Message: A timeline] who maybe know enough about biophysical reality to have an opinion. So, to start from when I was old enough to read big words:

1968:

Garrett Hardin, Tragedy of the [unmanaged] Commons.

Edward Abbey. Growth is the ideology of the cancer cell, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications, & 1976

Paul & Anne Ehrlich, Population, Resources, and Environment (The Population Bomb)

1969:

Al Bartlett, Arithmetic, Population, and Energy: Sustainability 101, 1969 to 2013

1971:

H. T. Odum, Environment, Power, and Society.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, economics as subset of ecological economics, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process.

1972:

Donella Meadows et al., Limits to Growth.

1973:

E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered.

1974:

Howard T. Odum, "What is the general answer?" Energy, Ecology & Economics.

1977:

Herman Daly, Steady-State Economics, &1991.

1979:

Marvin Harris, probabilistic infrastructural determinism, Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture.

1980:

R. C. Christian, Georgia Guidestones–leave room for Nature.

1985:

David Suzuki, A Planet for the Taking.

1988:

Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies.

1990:

The Elder Brothers' Warning.

Carl Sagan, An Appeal for Joint Commitment in Science and Religion: Preserving & Cherishing the Earth.

1992:

World Scientists Warning to Humanity

1993:

Donella Meadows et al., Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future.

1995:

Theodore John Kaczynski, Industrial Society and its Future.

1997:

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel.

2001:

H.T. Odum & Elisabeth C. Odum, A Prosperous Way Down.

‘The Need to Reintegrate the Natural Sciences with Economics’

2003:

Serge Latouche, global degrowth, Pour une societé de decroissance.

2004:

Donella Meadows et al., Limits to Growth-The 30 year Update.

2007:

H. T. Odum, Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy.

2008:

Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer.

2009:

Serge Latouche, Farewell to Growth.

2011:

Kogi second warning, all is interconnected, Aluna: There is no life without thought.

The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives

2012:

Charles A.S. Hall & Kent A. Klitgaard, Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy

2013:

Consensus Statement from Global Scientists.

2015:

Haydn Washington, Demystifying Sustainability: Towards real solutions.

2016:

E.O. Wilson, Half Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life.

2017:

Jeremy Lent The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning.

World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice

2018:

Charles A.S. Hall & Kent A. Klitgaard, Energy and the Wealth of Nations: An Introduction to Biophysical Economics.

Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker & Anders Wijkman, Come On!: Capitalism, short termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet.

Worsening Worldwide Land Degradation Now ‘Critical’

Living Planet Report of 59 global scientists & overview.

2019:

Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented (IPBES)

The Need for, and the Growing Importance of, BioPhysical Economics

So if you can only read one thing? Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A PrimerLike I assume, you'd rather know than believe, and at best we iterate towards knowing. We don't KNOW anything, and anyone who thinks (with some degree of certitude) that they do, (apart from the tautologies of logic and math) doesn't. As Richard Feynman noted, 'science is the belief in the ignorance of experts'.

So, as Donella Meadows notes, 'there are no cheap tickets to mastery. You have to work hard at it'. For the amusement of some know-a-lots, I'll offer to boil it down. There will be a peak everything. Exactly how high the peak will be, when the peak will be, and how far down and fast the descent will be is unknown. I used to guess climax (p=95), based on above and much more, would be 2030 to 2070. But based on the last link on list above, I'm edging down to 2025 to 2050. Climax could be followed by decades or even centuries of descent. But while the rate of growth is limited, there is no limit to the rate of degrowth, and the Seneca Effect suggests that post peak, descent will be rapid. So will the human population in 2119 be more or less than 7.7 billion? Less. Perhaps much less, likely much less as in 0.5 billion is less than 7.7 billion. I'd love to be wrong, but I'd rather listen to Nature than a chorus of sweet-singing Pollyannas [Sweet-Singing Economists]

My guess can be tested in four and a half years. I'm guessing that Jørgen Randers (see ‘We will not be 9 billion’ answer) is wrong that population will peak at 8 billion in 2040. I'll go out on a limb and say that when Jan. 2024 comes the global population will be 7.9x to 8.0x billion humans. I also suspect global population will not reach 9 billion, but for utterly different reasons than Randers. While waiting for 2024, read more of what those who endeavor to listen to Nature have to say and vet your sources. Question Everything. Believe nothing.

 

13. What do you make of Pew's projection that the world’s population will nearly stop growing by the end of the century? Jun 18

All the projections look ‘as expected’ by most other experts, part of a consensus story. World population growth is expected to nearly stop by 2100

The operative phrase is ‘is expected to’ (the word ‘expected’ is used 27 times) and deviations will be as unexpected (‘sorry, we didn’t expect...’), but expect the unexpected beyond maybe 5 to 10 years. That the global population will hit 8 billion in five years is likely. Beyond that is like asking what the weather is going to be in two weeks. The best answer any meteorologist could give is ‘I don’t know’. The dynamics of the world system are complex, more so than the weather, and we understand human ecology vastly less in terms of the probabilities of anything.

One of my favorite Richard Feynman quotes is ‘Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts’. All the projections for 2100 may be ‘best guess’ science, but that’s not saying much. A good guess is we will ‘hit a wall of biophysical limits’ before 2100, but details of our collision with futurity are unknown. As David Suzuki once opined: ‘We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit.' All population projections assume there is no wall or we won’t hit it before 2100.

 

14. Why is world population growth expected to nearly stop by 2100? Jun 20

‘Expected’ is based on projecting a continued drop in fertility rates AND assuming no change in death rates other than a continued increase in longevity. If there is a significant increase in death rates (conflict, suicide, overdosing, plaque, etc.), then ‘expected’ peak population would be before 2100, perhaps well before, as in 2050 or, as unexpected, sooner, within the ‘expected’ lifetimes of many reading Quora. We don’t live in a universe where things just have to keep getting better and better for humans because we are special, unlike, say, the reindeer on St. Matthew Island who weren’t special. What wiped out St. Matthew Island's reindeer?

 

15. Which do you think will come first, the world running out of resource to feed its populations, or the global population starting to decline and not be replaced? Jun 20

 

16. In your opinion, is the world population explosion coming to a 21st century end? Jun 21

Well, I’m an ignorant know-nothing from the hood, but I do have opinions. I don’t know why, but I do. Something about reading stuff for 50 years, considering charts and data, and endeavoring to understand the complex dynamics of the world system. In 1969 Professor Al Bartlett started giving his lecture on Arithmetic, Population, and Energy: Sustainability 101. After giving the public lecture to anyone who would listen, from high school classes (a captive audience) to gatherings of CEOs 1,742 times until he died in 2013, he concluded (before he died) that ‘The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.’ And why did he come to think we humans just don’t seem to understand the implications of the exponential function? I’m guessing it had something to do with giving the same lecture 1,742 times (included here: Understanding the Exponential Function).

So, (1) watch Al’s masterful lecture. Check. How about some graphs? Well I happen to know another professor dude, Charles A. Hall (he’s OK with Charlie) and he knew other professor dudes like Jay Forrester, M. King Hubbert, Joseph Tainter, H.T. Odum, and I’m guessing about every scientist who knew or knows enough to have an opinion. He helped his students with this graph named after some guy he had spent some quality time talking with when he was younger:

And for more curves the Meadows and a few others at MIT modeled one scenario (in 1972, it’s not a prediction, and all models are not the thing modeled) that could be called the BAU run (Business-As-Usual), which looked like:

In 2004 Donella Meadows, in ‘Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update’ noted (it’s an evidence thing) that we have been closely following the BAU scenario, but some experts think we’ll stop and reverse our keep-on-keeping-on course in the next year or so, and not do all that nasty degrowth stuff because humans are special. Since the 1990s a near unanimous consensus has arisen within the intelligentsia that the Limits to Growth study made predictions, they didn’t happen, so the ‘study’ by a bunch of nerds, ‘chicken littles with a computer’, at MIT doesn’t matter and could be dismissed, and still can be (for a time). [How "The Limits to Growth" was demonized]

Some experts (excluding those in natural science) think resources don’t matter, e.g. Steven Pinker: ‘I think that resource shortages are a red herring, and I talk about this [in his book, Enlightenment Now, Bill Gates' "favorite book of all time"] even though there is another kind of, what Gregg Easterbrook [sports writer, author of It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear] calls "collapse anxiety," namely the fear that no matter how good day to day life seems to be improving we should still be on edge because it all may collapse tomorrow. But the idea of resource shortages have loomed large in that kind of discussion, and we've never run out of any resources, and the reason is we don't need resources [emph added and note whale oil would be in short supply it there was a demand for it, but there is no shortage now, so Pinker must be right], we need ways of getting around, lighting our homes, heating our homes, eating, and which resources we use to satisfy those needs depends on our state of knowledge which changes [sorry Steven, it depends on energy]. And as a resource becomes scarce its price raises, incentivizes people to figure out how to get at less accessible deposits or more often to switch to some other resource. We've seen a, we're in the mist of a rather dramatic process of dematerialization; that thanks to electronic media, especially smartphones, we consume less stuff, we've reached peak stuff, we consume less paper, less newsprint, a lot of resources, not less carbon, which is something we need to do, but the problem of course with carbon isn't that we are going to run out of the stuff, out of oil, the problem is we have too much of it. So I think that resource shortages are a red herring. In terms of conflict between, armed conflict between countries, there is an unmistakable trend, we don't know if it will continue, but war between countries is becoming, is obsolescent, a point made by John Muller as early as the 1980s that the classic kind of war where Nation A declares war against Nation B, they face off with massive tank formations, naval battles, bombing each other's cities is becoming rarer and rarer. The wars that occur are civil wars, some of which can become quite nasty if they have outside intervention, but conflicts between nations are fewer in number, so it's not Utopian to think that in three to four hundred years they could go the way of slave auctions and human sacrifice. There are only 192 nations increasingly realizing that war is a stupid way of resolving disputes and it is entirely possible that they could go the way of [1:25:44 audio missing, lip reader needed] customs.’

I transcribed this from a video and sent it to Charlie Hall who emailed me back his response: only one word, ‘Groan...’ And that’s all I have to say about the above too. No video of Charlie, so I didn’t see him facepalm, but here’s a pic of me, or somebody, as I think I have more hair:

ref above

So if you want to believe that things will surely just keep getting better and better forever and ever, then just read Pinker and ilk (e.g. ecomoderists —Ecomodernist Manifesto). Or if you’d rather know than believe (‘People would rather believe than know.’ —E.O. Wilson) and so are not people, then read everything and question everything. I’ll give E.O. (like Pinker, another Harvard professor dude) the final word: ‘For the first time in history a conviction has developed among those who can actually think more than a decade ahead that we are playing a global endgame. Humanity's grasp on the planet is not strong. It is growing weaker. Our population is too large....' — Edward O. Wilson, Half Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life 2016

I lied, I didn’t give my opinion, so I get the last word. Don’t believe anything anyone says. Listen to Nature, who has all the answers, and iterate towards knowing. A 21st century end in terms of peak population? Yes.

But I self-describe as an extreme cornucopian optimist living (for a time as I won’t stick around but Nature will) on an Abundant Earth, because I am. [Toward an Ecological Civilization: Eileen Crist: Oh, if you have to pay to read (not in library or a friend doesn’t have it, and are short on the money thing), read Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems: A Primer even though she didn’t teach at Harvard (just got her PhD there), even though she doesn’t have much to say about population in this book. https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf Understanding systems is prerequisite for understanding life, the universe and everything, including population matters.

 

17. Who will protect the world from overpopulation? Jun 21

No one so far, so... There is no who, no agent. Nature is not an agent but a vast expanse of space-time-matter-energy that contains complex dynamic subsystems that act as agents, e.g. tornadoes, humans, yeast, cancer cells/tumors. On the Solar System celestial dynamics scale, Earth is a gravitational agent. Who protects our bodies from cancer? Cancer is a pathology, a deviation from what works, in which cells grow at the expense of other cells because a loss of reproductive/consumptive restraint (an error) results in their short-term growth. They prosper wonderfully right up until the body is in the ICU facing multiple system failures. From their point of view there will still be plenty of tissue to consume right up until the heart stops beating and chest stops going up and down, after which all cells will be dead in a few hours [3 minutes to 12 hours Clinical death - Wikipedia], including the cancer cells.

This is why, although cancerous growth is selected for in the short-term, it is not in the long-term because it prospers only at the expense of the host it consumes, killing it such that its pattern of exploitation also ends. Nature does not select for cancer. Bodies able to resist cancer are selected for. Nature is not a body and a damaged Nature will survive. We may not. If a remnant population of humans persist, recovers as environmental restoration occurs over typically five or so centuries, but repeats the pattern, then extinction will be longer in coming. Or humans may learn to understand the dynamics of the world system and live properly with the planet. The rule that works is ‘system over self’ —H.T. Odum, systems ecologist, not the other way around narrative that Anthropocene enthusiasts believe in.

 

18. The world's population is projected to hit 10.9 billion at the century's end, and world population could begin to plateau due to low fertility rates - will rapid growth pose a hurdle in meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals? Jun 22

Since you asked, Sheron, my question is can I add anything to Garvin Boyle’s answer? I suppose, since Garvin really can’t answer at book length here. So let’s see, the question is multi-dimensional with assumptions to unpack, so maybe I can expand on the question.

The world’s human population is projected to be in the 10.9 to 12 billion range by about 2100 by expert demographers who really only know how to project past to current trends. The future is imagined to be a continuing decline in birth rate and a continued decline in death rate and increase in life-expectancy due to things continuing to get better and better for more and more people as it has, on average, been doing the last 100 years. Demographers have only hindsight. Meteorologists actually do have a pretty good grasp of Earth’s weather dynamics, but can’t project more than a week or so into the future.

And supposedly everyone wants to live like Americans (actually United Stateans as everyone living in the Americas, north, central and south, are Americans). And as everyone knows, humans eventually get what they want. It’s a law of the universe or something.

Due to continued fossil fuel enabled economic growth (Industrial Revolution), our ability to turn fossil fuels into food (Green Revolution), improved sanitation and stuff like better disease control, better health care..., while we continue to select for antibiotic resistant organisms, soil loss faster than soil formation, groundwater over pumping, increasing per capita consumption, and everybody’s heard about the long and growing list of inconvenient issues that the UN SDGs are going to reverse somehow because all we need are agreed upon goals to meet, and clever apes who serve the sustainable development hegemon will figure out how to meet them even if it means violating the second law of thermodynamics or any other so-called laws that get in our way because as everyone knows, with the exception of a few Ludites or wannabe Unabombers (i.e. people like me), development (if only qualitative) has to be sustainable. We will soon decouple fully from nature. The singularity awaits. [Technological singularity - Wikipedia]

Since the future will resemble the past (per common ‘knowledge’), and since fertility rates are dropping faster than longevity is increasing, the population will not plateau. The human population will decrease. But that can easily be prevented. As any NCE economist or director of marketing can explain, increasing incentives and paying entertainers and movie/video producers to make motherhood seem cool again will turn around any decrease in population as it plateaus, or rather will enable it to continue to increase to help grow the economy. Human biology can easily exceed a mere 2.1 births per woman rate (historical fertility rates: 4.5 to 7 children per woman Fertility Rate). We’ll just make motherhood great again.

To end poverty (SDG #1), a goal no one (except see above) could possibly disagree with, the economy must not merely grow, but grow rapidly. The 1987 UN’s Brundtland Commission, who started the sustainable development meme, suggested a global economic grow rate of 5 percent, to double the economy every (70/5=) 14 years, and what’s not to like about that? Of course sharing the spoils of planetary extraction more equitably, such that the rich don’t get richer quite as fast, is part of the vision.

It took four years for a committee to come up with 17 goals that no seemingly sane person who wanted to be considered sane could disagree with. So I decided to not merely disagree, but to propose (took me about 4 hours to alter the above chart as I recall) an alternative set of goals that could actually work to enable posterity, as the millennia pass, to prosper. [see Feng Shui Science]

Rapid continued economic growth will likely have the opposite of the intended effect, as usual.

And the Sustainable Descent Goals:

Okay, I used too many words, but I’m not a wordsmith. No committed Anthropocene enthusiast would endorse any of these goals.

A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies, title of Howard T. and Elisabeth Odums’ how-to book. [My offering: The Prosperous Way Up and Down.]

Armed with technology and energy, the world is (as an unmanaged commons) a planet for the taking . If you don’t take it, others will. A managed commons is alternative.

Molding individual behavior into a plan of actions and avoidances that are oriented toward the maintenance of a viable equilibrium between Man’s demands and Nature’s resources is alternative. [We can learn about real solutions from these people]

 

19. When will the human population become unsustainable or has it already reached that point? Jun 24

The concept (not opinion) that applies is that of the human/livestock/pet/crop/industrial/urban sprawl, or human ecological footprint is in overshoot. The concept was developed by William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel his student at the time in 1992. [Ecological footprint - Wikipedia]

It is entirely possible to exceed the sustainable carrying capacity of this one and only planet we live on (for a time), just as if you were gifted a million dollars and there actually was a law of the universe that ensured you would earn five percent interest forever, then you and one heir after another could live off the 50K/year interest forever. But you could spend 100K every year (for a time), but at some point you [or posterity] would maybe be begging for food and pity on a street corner if you’re lucky.

So to boil it down, if we humans exceed the appropriate carrying capacity of a region or planet, exceed the sustainable environmental productivity, then by definition descent will occur. If humanity just keeps on growing the economy, population, or per capita consumption forever, or transitions to a steady-state economy/population, then we were never in overshoot.

So are we humans in overshoot? Don’t answer. This is not a matter of opinion. You don’t get a vote. Nature ultimately selects for what works, i.e. ‘decides’. Relatively few scientists know enough to have an informed best-guess evidence-based opinion, and I’m not included, so for a better view:

So we started spending down the principle, going into overshoot, about 1970. We are now consuming 1.75 times more Earths [environmental resources and services] than Earth sustainable. And how’s that been working for us? GREAT!!! (for a time). For long-term prosperity—degrow the population (humans, pets, livestock, crops) and the economy rapidly, with enthusiasm, for a managed and prosperous way down as the alternative is chaotic collapse as usual. [A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies: Howard T. Odum, Elisabeth C. Odum]

 

20. The UN report says that the world population could swell to 10.9 billion by 2100 - could this exacerbate hunger, poverty, and climate change? Jun 25

Or 11.2 billion or 12 billion or peaking at 8 billion by 2040 (but per capita consumption would have to continue to increase so all must strive to grow the economy, sustainably of course), then how could this not exacerbate every issue?

“Can you think of any problem, in any area of human endeavour, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?” [see Professor Albert Bartlett‘s heroic if unsustainable endeavor: to educate the world (he had to stop trying after he died) — Arithmetic, 

 

21. Does 90% of the world's human population live in the Northern Hemisphere? Jun 25

Australia, Southern Africa, South America below Ecuador, Southeast Asia, Oceania, and not many people in Antarctica either compared to more industrialized North with more land and more arable land, so about 90% live in the North leaving about 800,000,000 in South. Northern Hemisphere - Wikipedia

 

22. What do you think is going to happen as the human race continues exponential population increase? Jun 26

Since growth, in population or per capita consumption or production is limited, even if we ended up building a Dyson sphere that could support a population of 29 billion trillion [Zero and counting], exponential population growth and energy consumption, any steady rate of growth, even 0.1%, will peak or climax and is followed by descent whenever a system exceeds carrying capacity and goes into overshoot. We are in overshoot and have been since 1970 to 1980s depending on which expert is guessing, reading the tea leaves of evidence which is not merely a matter of opinion.

But best guess is we are well into overshoot, meaning the current global industrial society and its everything is not remotely sustainable and will climax and then descend. Overshoot implies that we cannot transition to a steady-state system. If in 1972 we had slammed on the brakes, stopped economic and population growth in five years, than descent with oscillation would have been the best possible future as the further we go into overshoot, the further and harder we’ll fall. From posterity’s POV we probably should have slammed on the breaks in 1950, start of the Great Acceleration.

[Environment, Power, and Society for the 21st Century]

This is a repeating pattern, but for the fist time, empowered by fossil fuels, we are doing it on a global level.

[Past Lives of Humans]

So it’s a when and not if question. So everyone, not in denial, wants to know when, and nobody knows, as in actually knows. A best-guess average of those who may know enough to have an opinion is within the lifetime of many Quora readers [The Need for, and the Growing Importance of, BioPhysical Economics].

Peak is the beginning of a new pathway that will not be characterized by growth, but by degrowth or descent (or chaotic collapse aka Zombie Apocalypse unless managed for a prosperous way down), The Prosperous Way Up and Down).

And how long will descent take? Energy is a precondition for production and consumption (e.g. industrial agriculture), so could be a few decades, or centuries, or years as:

And population in a much lower energy, post-fossil-fueled world? Figure 50 to 500 million depending on level of per capita consumption and level of environmental restoration... and then we’ll pulse again and everyone will love growth (for a time)... or maybe not if some understanding of complex system dynamics is preserved.

Sustainability Issues: Plan B because there is no Planet B

Comment:

Actually I don’t see population and civilization pulsing back any time soon after a collapse. We’ve exploited ALL the low hanging fruit in terms of energy and resources.

Responce:

I agree. So far all prior pulses (empire-building) have been regional. Typically, after perhaps 500 years of environmental recovery (e.g. regrowth of forests, soil recovery from prior unsustainable agricultural practices), wealth (e.g. energy from fuelwood, soil fertility, fisheries...) allows for another pulse. (e.g. High Middle Ages). As the Roman, Seneca, noted, “Increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.” (Letters to Lucilius #91, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 64 CE ). So pulsing back after descent will be slow and may not begin for 500 years (e.g. Early Middle Ages, aka Dark Ages). We’ve never pulsed our system, as complex society, on a global scale before, so the past may well not help in foreseeing the future. But best guess would be that in some regions, assuming we learn nothing again, in about 500 years the pattern of empire-building, starting with chiefdom level complex societies, will be possible and the pattern will repeat, but without fossil fuels will never be global again. Alternative would be to understand system pulsing and avoid overshoot by living within limits, i.e. in stage 4 keeping the black line well below the gray line so environmental restoration continues and growth of the human economy and population grows within limits of what works per best-guess systems ecology.

 

23. What will happen if the population shrinks into one-tenth of what it is now? Jun 27

Shrinking the human population to 770 million will be a good start. For those living through the transition the way down will seem lamentable as it will not be embraced with enthusiasm and so the descent will be unplanned and unmanaged as usual [Past Lives of Humans] We’ve been treating Earth as a planet for the taking [David Suzuki: A Planet for the Taking], have pretty much taken it by maximizing growth, and have treated the biosphere as an unmanaged commons (e.g. ocean fisheries—Overfishing - Wikipedia), and as human ecologist Garrett Hardin pointed out in 1968, the dynamics of unmanaged commons have a tragic outcome for both environment and society [Tragedy of the commons - Wikipedia].

The planet is a shared resource, one we share with all other organisms, hence it is a commons. Humans with technology, empowered by fossil fuels or not (e.g. atlatl technology that enabled megafauna extinction on four continents [Megafauna - Wikipedia]), need to manage “individual behaviour into a plan of actions or avoidances that are oriented toward the maintenance of a viable equilibrium between Man’s demands and Nature’s resources. In this manner the individual and society at large must both carry the burden of great responsibilities which, in the Kogi view, extend not only to their society but to the whole of mankind." [We can learn about real solutions from these people]

This is what a non-monument building Taironan city looks like.

As E.O. Wilson noted, “For the first time in history a conviction has developed among those who can actually think more than a decade ahead that we are playing a global endgame. Humanity's grasp on the planet is not strong. It is growing weaker. Our population is too large....” — Edward O. Wilson, Half Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life 2016. David Suzuki asked Wilson how many people he thought Earth could support: “I once asked the great ecologist E.O. Wilson how many people the planet could sustain indefinitely. He responded, ‘If you want to live like North Americans, 200 million’." [Achievable via a 97% depopulation.] But Jack Alpert, engineer, of Stanford Knowledge Integration Laboratory [SKIL], would beg to differ. He estimates 50 million clustered around hydroelectric dams (for a time as average life expectancy of dam is about 400 years). In less optimist moments he guesses 30 million.

But I self-describe as an extreme cornucopian optimist living on an Abundant Earth[My Predicament]. After perhaps 500 years of environmental restoration, I envision up to 500 million prosperous humans living the good life for perhaps a billion years or more [Future of Earth - Wikipedia] as we speciate into “forms most beautiful and most wonderful” [A quote from The Origin of Species], perhaps dozens of forms living with millions of others as failing to do so has extinction as the endgame.

Prior to the agro empowered Anthropocene that increased food abundance ten fold for the price of most (about ten times more) humans working from sunup to sundown to support themselves and overloads in complex societies (for a time), or fossil-fueled industrial agriculture that supported another ten fold increase in population working fewer hours with vacation time to support themselves and overloads (for a time), the human population was in the 4–10 million range.

So why maximize population? If supporting 500 million on the backs of commoners isn’t ideal, if you want to increase material prosperity ten fold based on low-intensity agriculture, then think 50 million global human population with a livestock and pet population in the “good enough” range. For greater prosperity, our more highly evolved and ecolate descendants may consider 5 million to be “just right.”

Of course, if you listen to Anthropocene enthusiasts (the 99+%, e.g. ecomoderists [Ecomodernist Manifesto], conventional economics, [David Suzuki Is Right: Neoliberal Economics Are ‘Pretend Science’, William Rees, MAHB]), you get a different story [The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives]. But I’m betting that such posterity as may descend from us will listen to Nature, who “has all the answers.” [H.T. Odum, systems ecologist, Emergy Yield Ratios Matter, who guessed Earth could support 500 million sustainably per Mary Odum, his daughter, Policies for Prosperous Descent], but not if they want to live like North Americans today.

 

24. What are other possible causes for the slowing in a population growth rate aside from not having children? Jun 27

Well, there’s birth rates and death rates, and the net reproductive rate is the percentage growth after accounting for births and deaths. Net reproductive rate (r) is calculated as: r = (births-deaths)/population size or to get in percentage terms, just multiply by 100. [Lecture18-Population Growth]

So if birth rate is sacrosanct, there’s the death rate that can change. If there was a plague, a global pandemic, but it caused everyone who reached 25 years of age to live forever, or maybe 600 years when on average you’d likely die by accident, then expect population growth. If it caused death, expect rapid degrowth. If the plague caused only loss of fertility, expect species extinction in about a hundred years.

If you live on an island and more people leave than immigrate, then the population declines assuming replacement birth rate equals death rate. About 63 percent of Puerto Ricans live off the island, so instead of 8,783,700 people on the island, there are ‘only’ 3,195,000.

So if humans were to suddenly become popular pets (a celebrity, Zaphod Beeblebrox, is seen with one), and the Vogon ship arrives to remove 7 billion humans to meet market demand, then that would rapidly degrow the population. [Vogon - Wikipedia]

 

25. In the recent news, record breaking floods have practically ruined all the crops grown in our nations breadbasket. Is the worlds population going to have enough food to feed everyone? Jun 28

Recent news and current events are a distraction. Will the future always resemble the past? Tomorrow will likely resemble yesterday, but in the long-run the nature of things (systems) follow a pulsing paradigm [Pulsing Paradigm], up and down, so growth is for a time. All humans who have money, value it, and likely have some, are products of industrial society, now global, that issued out of the bowels of the Industrial Revolution which began when Europe was running out of fuelwood and was able to keep on keeping on by burning coal scraped up from surface outcroppings. In 1712 coal mines following the coal underground were being flooded as digging went below the fluctuating water table. Newcomen invented a coal powered steam engine to pump the water out to enable continued digging (for a time). Fossil-fueled growth has been ongoing since, but will the future always resemble the past?

Since time immemorial (“or time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary” Time immemorial - Wikipedia) we servants of industrial society have been growing the economy. Human temporal blindness insures that most people cannot imagine the growth hegemon ending, much less transitioning to rapid degrowth. So how long is from time immemorial? If it was so in my grandfather’s time, in my father’s, and in still happening in mine, then it it has always been so and will continue to be so forevermore. But Nature reckons time in millennia or eons, “and this too shall pass away.” [This too shall pass - Wikipedia]

But let’s focus on food. Population can grow exponentially, but food production can’t, increases are linear (unless for a time energy inputs are not), yet food production has been growing faster than the population, such that mass starvation predicted in the late 1960s didn’t happen, and still hasn’t, so it never will. Or maybe we whose lives are dependent on food production should have some slight clue as to how food comes into being before appearing on the supermarket shelves.

Let’s see, farmers grow food. Clever ape agronomists (like me, BS degrees in crop and soil science) grow food. Ah, no, not really. I realized that as an agricultural expert (in industrial agriculture ways and means) that without industrial inputs (i.e. fossil fuel, direct as in sitting on a hundred horse tractor or indirect as in turning nitrogen gas into fertilizer via Haber process [Haber process - Wikipedia]) I would have nothing to say to a traditional Hopi corn/bean/squash farmer and to grow corn in his environment, with only sun, soil, water, and labor with a digging stick for power, I would have to apprentice myself and sit at his feet. My science would help me to understand why what he did likely worked, and perhaps in a few decades I could slightly improve on traditional techniques. There really are biophysical limits. Human and animal labor depends on solar energy to produce the needed energy to labor in the fields. Energy matters.

But using fossil fuels or some other energy source seemingly “too cheap to meter” for a time, seems alternative to solar energy. We’ll just build 100 story farms, each floor illuminated by artificial grow lights 24/7, and we can increase food production faster than populations of humans, pets, and livestock can grow or want to. And no sunlight required (except fossil sunlight, for a time). Humans have and continue to tap into a vast planetary larder of fossil fuels to grow the economy (and food). This deliriously happy eudaimonic vision of prosperity for all forevermore is an easy sell; everyone wants to believe, to believe rather than know. “People would rather believe than know.” —E.O. Wilson.

But alternative energy isn’t alternative to fossil fuels [Emergy Yield Ratios Matter]. The Green Revolution, starting in the late 1960s, selected cultivars that could turn fossil fuel into food. About 90 percent of the food you eat, that on average traveled 1,500 miles to get to your mouth (and not on the back of donkeys), is made of fossil energy produced over hundreds of millions of years and stored in the earth’s crust just because it was.

Our food production system is utterly dependent on industrial inputs and energy is the precondition for production. Give me irrigation pumps (and diesel/electric to run them), tractors (and diesel...), fertilizer, and whatever else I can currently buy, and I’ll easily product 150 bushels of corn per acre just about anywhere, for a time.

A Hopi farmer can keep on farming the way his predecessors farmed for a thousand years, but he’ll produce 4 bushels per acre of corn after a five to fifteen year fallow period. Being a quick study, I could maybe hope to grow 3 bushels initially. In ideal corn growing areas with enough rainfall at the right time, by farming the same ground for two or three years about every 15 years to allow for soil recovery, I could maybe grow 25 bushels of corn per acre on two acres, with ten fallow acres, compared to 150 bushels per acre per year after seemingly endless year (for a time).

Rain is distilled water and irrigating with rainwater is sustainable. Irrigation by groundwater pumping or diversion of surface flow isn’t. The more dissolved salts in the water and the more arid the region, the shorter the time the land can support agriculture, even if there is no drawdown of the aquifer as in vast areas it is (for a time) being drawndown [e.g. Ogallala Aquifer - Wikipedia].

Soil loss greater than the rate of soil formation is unsustainable. In recent decades vast areas in India and China have been turned into industrial agriculture factories supported, for a time, by irrigation and industrial inputs. The melting glaciers in the Himalayas are providing surface water to irrigate with in the summer when it is most needed. When the glaciers are gone, so will the summer river flows. Sea levels are going to raise with some areas loosing 10 to over 20 percent of crop lands. But the next ice age will expose more land.

Even if there were illimitable fuel to empower industrial society, the agricultural systems we depend on are not remotely sustainable. Industrial society, on the current scale, is also not...

As seen by NASA, the world is getting greener due to expansion of silviculture and intensive agriculture. China and India—the world’s most populous countries—are leading the increase in greening on land. The greening is anthropogenic, due to fossil-fueled industrial agriculture. Global green leaf area has increased by 5 percent since the early 2000s [arid land when irrigated turns green until ground water is exhausted or there is no fuel for pumping], an area equivalent to all of the Amazon rainforests. One-third of Earth’s vegetated lands are greening, while only 5 percent are growing browner. Anthropocene enthusiasts, economists, and ecomodernists [Ecomodernist Manifesto] rejoice (for a time).

China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes from its programs to conserve and expand forests [aka tree farms] to produce future wood products (and incidentally reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution, and climate change) as well as intensification of irrigated agriculture in order to feed their large populations [for a time] using multiple cropping practices that have increased food production 35 to 40 percent since 2000 by turning fossil fuel into food to grow the economy (at 6 to 15 percent, for a time, which is faster than their population is growing).

One interpretation of the data: “Once people realize there is a problem, they tend to fix it... Humans are incredibly resilient. That’s what we see in the satellite data.” Humans are fixing the world! Data needs to be interpreted, however. The interpretation is provided by the journal Nature Sustainability (pay-walled article, Feb. 2019, in pay-to-play journal launched Jan. 2018 and hosted by nature.com), and is one interpretation (reviewed on NASA Earth Observatory). So caveat emptor.

So, about 22,000 colleges and universities teach neoclassical economics (NCE) and produce over 7,000 people with a PhD in economics each year. All agree, with an insignificant number of exceptions, that we can easily feed humanity when its population naturally levels off around 2100 at 11 billion. They don’t think there can be too many people, worrying instead about how they can help maintain or increase GDP growth, and they also don’t think that NCE is a pretend science [David Suzuki Is Right: Neoliberal Economics Are ‘Pretend Science’ | MAHB].

Natural scientists have a different view, because they endeavor to listen to Nature rather than serve those whose bread they eat by telling stories they and other servants of industrial society want to hear. So who are you going to to listen to? To those who do not listen to Nature; to those who endeavor to listen to Nature; or to Nature? Choose wisely.

 

26. Do you think the world is overcrowded? Jun 28

No.

About 52 percent of people in the United States describe their neighborhood as suburban, while about 27 percent describe their neighborhood as urban, and 21 percent as rural [Most Americans Describe Where They Live As Suburban]. So 79 percent see themselves as living in metro areas.

The average population density of metropolitan areas (MSA) is 283 people per square mile; in New York City, the population density is 27,012 people per square mile. Guttenberg, New Jersey has the greatest density of housing units (24,195) per square mile of land area. [Center for Sustainable Systems]

So let’s see, Texas has 268,597 mi² and the world has 7.7 billion and counting. So if all moved to Texas, the density would be (7,700,000,000/268,597) 28,667 people/ mi², or about the same as New York City, but not anywhere near the 111,000 people/mi² in Manila, which some would call crowded, but it is not too crowded as people actually live there. So could all humans fit into the state of Texas? Yes. Could they actually live there assuming no imports from outside Texas? No, not remotely possible. Could all humans, or just 7.7 billion, live sustainably on the planet Earth without imports from outside other than direct sunlight? Not remotely possible, but overcrowded? No.

 

27. How many people can the planet Earth sustainably support? Jun 29

There’s the Spaceship Earth and the Island Earth metaphor (and Cruise Ship Earth metaphor), so to simplify, imagine you are one member of a voyaging canoe. You are Navigator and there are seven young couples onboard. Thanks in part to your skills, you chance (near death) upon an island. You climb to the peak of the one mountain where you can see all of the island and ask yourself how many people can the island sustainably support before conflict arises?

The reason you and the fourteen others sailed into the unknown to risk certain death if you failed to find a new island was because the population of the island you came from had grown too large. There was scarcity and conflict. You could stay and fight, or leave. You left, but you were determined that this time the pattern would not repeat.

You realize that when the people start to complain that there is not enough of anything provided by Nature's resources, that the population is too large. Scarcity begets conflict which increases scarcity in a downward spiral to dissolution. As a master Navigator, you had been to 42 inhabited islands and had noted their population when conflict had arisen. You guess how many this island might support and explain to everyone that when the island seems half full, it is time to manage human demands on the island's resources by decreasing the birth rate to transition to a steady-state population. [see A Tale of Two Islands]

So, on Spaceship Earth, what is the best-guess of those who know enough about environment, power, society, carrying capacity, environmental productivity, population dynamics, and limits to growth? I don't know enough to have an opinion, so I listen to systems ecologist types who maybe do know enough to guess (e.g. E.O. Wilson, Howard T. Odum, Charles Hall, William Rees, Joseph Tainter, Donella Meadows). I could cite informed estimates that range from 50 million to 2 billion, and have, but whatever the best-guess may be (a best-guess of 500 million is common), we are over the sustainable limit, and so transitioning to that limit without degrowth is not an option no matter how low per capita consumption may be.

Degrowing the population, intentionally or not, is what happens to all other species when a population is in our position of environmental overshoot [e.g. St. Matthew Island - Wikipedia]. If you believe humans are different in kind from other organisms, that we're special, exempt from the laws of energetics [Past Lives of Humans], then nothing to worry about, so just keep on keeping on.

You may not live on an island, but you do live in a watershed or sub-watershed area thereof. We don't have a global population problem. If your watershed's environmental productivity supplies its current population with everything everyone needs (wants are different and can be multiplied endlessly—see Mark Twain Quote), as an island provides for early settlers before their population begins to exceed island productivity, then you don't have an overpopulation problem. Those on other islands or in other watersheds may have a serious over or under population problem. There are pothole problems, but there is no global pothole problem. [There is No Global Population Problem]

Since fossil fuel use is unsustainable, don't envision its use. If the average life-expectancy of a hydroelectric dam is 400 years (all were made using fossil fuels, and no hydroelectric dam's output has ever built another hydroelectric dam), your 500-year plan would not assume having that power source, though in some areas in-stream intermittent hydroelectric may be sustainable. Solar PV isn't making PV panels, inverters, mining copper for wire, etc., and ditto wind turbines (cheap coal in China is, mostly). But maybe in some high and steady wind areas wind generators could make wind generators and even some solar PV panels sustainably, but as emergy yield ratios matter, don't envision more than pockets of industrial society.

Don't expect food to travel, on average, 1,500 miles to your mouth. If people in your watershed complain of not enough food, wood, water... reduce the population. When all watershed areas are managed properly, and human demands on nature's resources and services are in balance, then add up the population of all watershed management units [Watershed Design Principles] in the world and that is the sustainable population of planet Earth. There is no other way to answer the question. Nature is the one who has the answer. We can but ask and listen to Nature. We can guess, then test, and learn to live within limits that we don’t get to vote on, bitches.

 

 

28. If humans are really intelligent and not simply manipulated by their genes like any other animal, why can't they do anything about overpopulation? Jun 30

Birth control technology was developed and spread widely to meet consumer demand for family planning in a consumer society, not to manage population or consumption. Birth control enabled fertility rates to declined, and has been called the demographic transition, which was unplanned, That fertility rates within increasingly industrialized/urbanized societies drop is evident. That it has anything to do with enlightened (putatively educated) individuals wanting to help control population growth is not. Could have something to do with ‘beautiful ones’ perusing self interest as usual in a BAU world. John B. Calhoun’s rats and mice, placed in urban like environments with every need provided for, also underwent a ‘demographic transition’, perhaps for similar reasons humans have and are now. [Critical Mass Transcript], but no intelligence nor intent implied.

That humans are different in kind from other animals is widely believed and asserted, but not evidence-based. Mountains of evidence may be cited, but the conclusion comes first and the reasoning is sham [Science: Morality and Sham Reasoning]. Humans do differ. Cabbages differ from humans too, but we share half ‘our’ genes with them. Humans differ from other primates in the complexity of their verbal behavior. Our ability to deny, obfuscate, and believe what is comforting but manifestly false and reject what is true but unpleasant may not be evidence of intelligence, but of pathology. [As H.L Mencken put it: “It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting.”]

We are all part of a remorseless dynamic that we do not understand [Garvin H Boyle's answer to Is there any way to turn around the destruction of our planet and clean up the massive ecological mess we've made and continue to make?]. We may have the potential to be smarter than yeast, but the current ‘rules of the game’ select for growth. China abandoned it’s one child policy to better grow the economy, and Anthropocene enthusiasts, the 99+%, everywhere view degrowth as an existential threat. Yeast differ ‘in kind’ from humans, more than we differ from other animals: they sporulate to transition. And what’s our plan when denial and pretense doesn’t work anymore?

 

29. Would the entire world population be able to fit in Tokyo? July 1

In 1968 John Brunner wrote a science fiction novel that won a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969, called Stand on Zanzibar. It was inspired by an earlier estimate that the world's 3.5 billion people could stand on the Isle of Wight if they stood shoulder to shoulder and front to back. Brunner correctly guessed that in the early 21st century the 7 billion people (happened in 2011) would need a larger island for standing room. Zanzibar would be big enough at 2,460 km².

Tokyo is 2,190 km² or 845 mi², so if 7 billion people just stood a bit closer, took a deep breath out, all humans could fit. Today, at 7.7 billion, assuming small children were on the shoulders of their parents, all could fit in the area covered by Tokyo.

But since Tokyo is not a flat surface, averages X stories high, everyone might be able to lay down, so plenty of room. What percentage would be dead in 24 hours? I don’t know, but without continued unsustainable extraction of planetary resources flowing in and waste and pollution flowing out (including heat), all would be dead within a few months.

Assuming a more comfortable level of crowding, say that New York City, the city size needed for everyone would be the size of the state of Texas. Eric Lee's answer to Has the world become overcrowded?

 

30. What if the entire world’s population lived in one city? How big would that city be? Or how small could you pack it? July 1

Texas has 268,597 mi² and the world has 7.7 billion and counting. So if all moved to Texas, the density would be (7,700,000,000/268,597) 28,667 people/mi², or about the same as New York City, but not anywhere near the 111,000 people/mi² in Manila, which some would call crowded, but it is not too crowded as people actually live there. But to pack’em in, assuming small children on the shoulders of parents, an area the size of Tokyo would be big enough, and with all the high rise buildings, everyone could even have room enough to lay down in. Eric Lee's answer to Would the entire world population be able to fit in Tokyo?

 

31. What occurs when population growth slows or stops following a period of exponential growth? July 1

If a forest fire creates a vast expanse of ash, exponential grow follows, first of secondary successors, e.g. weedy plants, followed in increasing diversity that transitions to a mature climax forest in maybe five hundred years. So growth is for a time, ending in a more or less steady-state that changes with changes in climate, or quickly changes when the next fire comes, volcano explodes, or meteor impacts (or humans build a city, factory, or farm). [Succession: A Closer Look]

Some people (e.g. those who are part of the Transition Movement) believe that humanity will follow the classic model of succession and we’ll transition into something like a climax forest of a cityscape. But this is wishful thinking based on a misunderstanding of ecology 101. The world was not laid waste to such that humans are the ones working to restore it and after the transition, to enjoy a steady-state of prosperity.

Humanity is the one laying waste to a planetary life-support system, acting like an invasive species or rather a metastasizing cancer in a body. We will not transition to a happy steady-state of sustainable development. As E.O. Wilson notes: ‘For the first time in history a conviction has developed among those who can actually think more than a decade ahead that we are playing a global endgame. Humanity's grasp on the planet is not strong. It is growing weaker. Our population is too large....', Half Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life 2016.

Fossil fuels have enabled us to pulse our system as complex society into overshoot, where, for a time, we are consuming 1.75 Earths. Exponential growth unto overshoot has a very different outcome.

Whether we are near the end of Stage 1, or moving into Stage 2 is not clear yet (but growth is slowing, China is only doubling there economy every 10 years, down from every 5-7 years), but by 2030 I’m guessing it will be to those who would rather know what’s what and why, than believe that humans are different in kind form other organisms such that something like the above couldn’t happen to we exceptional ones. [Environment, Power, and Society for the 21st Century]

So exponential growth, always for a time only, has the two above outcomes. For the current global empire, it’s going to follow the over pulsing into overshoot paradigm.

The trajectory of the Euro-Sino Empire (current one, early Middle Ages to present global technoindustrial society) is still on the up and up, for a time.

Why be different? Descent cometh, but only future historians may be able to form a consensus as to what year the climax occurred. The up and down is a process. Actually a repeating pattern. [Euro-Sino Empire]

 

32. What would an eco-friendly modern city look like? July 2

The word ‘modern’ is a deal breaker, like asking a philosopher of science what would a true postmodern ecomodernest theory look like [Ecomodernist Manifesto]. Modernity is not remotely sustainable [Boyle Note], let alone eco-friendly, no more than an aggressive metastatic cancer is healthy.

What would an eco-friendly city look like?

This is what a non-monument building Taironan city looks like. Perhaps We can learn about real solutions from these people.

 

33. Is the term "sustainable" meaningful, or is it just greenwashing? July 2

Some years ago I became aware of a local group who believed in a Sustainable Tucson [Arizona, USA, that unsustainably pumps water uphill from the Colorado River (total of about 2,000 feet to allow for flow between pumping stations) 336 miles via 15 pumping plants (using 2.8 trillion Wh/year of electric from coal-fired power plant) to pump 500 billion gallons of water per year, the largest user of electric power in the state)] and looked over the claims made on their website [Sustainable Tucson]. They are all, so far as I can determine, upper-middle class (or upper) university educated professionals, pillars of the community who want to believe and who are a branch of the Transition Movement. So for over four years I’ve been looking into ‘Sustainability Issues’.

Arizona State University was one of the first Schools of Sustainability, first to offer BA/BS to PhD, and I looked at the background of tenured and tenured-track professors [ASU Factulty]. 23% had degrees in conventional NCE economics, which is not about sustainability anymore than the economy is [Boyle Note].

Professor Haydn Washington’s 2015 book, ‘Demystifying Sustainability: Towards Real Solutions’ [Demystifying Sustainability, A review and synopsis] mentions 300 definitions of ‘sustainability’. The concept, in the mouths of wordsmiths, is whatever they want it to mean or want you to believe it to mean, and so isn’t greenwashing or anything else, other than incoherent. [Schools of Sustainability]

 

34. Are we reaching a point, in the planet’s ability to support life, that we really should start to tackle population growth? (answer with most upvotes)

The situation, the human predicament, can be boiled down to ‘People would rather believe than know’. —E.O. Wilson.

Those few who would rather know than believe, who were paying attention in the 1950s, had existential concerns for humanity and the biosphere.

Some could grasp what the concept of overshoot implies. [Eric Lee's answer to Will the population be more than today in the next 100 years or less?]

But once words like ‘overpopulation’, ‘environment’, ‘climate change’ become politicized, belief (for or against, like or dislike) takes over and sanity is lost. In science, wanting to know rather than believe is what works, but among true believers tackling ‘real solutions’ is precluded as is understanding the what-is (aka the alleged ‘reality’ thing). Listen to Nature, the nature of things, and not the politicized prattle of know-a-lots swimming in the sea of error, ignorance, and illusion we are awash in. [Sustainability Issues: There is no Planet B so we need a Plan A & B]

 

35. Are there any humans on our planet that still live without modern comforts and technology? Where do they live? July 2

There are some tribal people in the Amazon fighting illegal logging and others are mentioned in other answers, but are there any humans living in complex societies above the tribal level of complexity? I used to spend each summer for ten years as a homeless migrant farmworker in US and I never lacked for modern comforts or needed technology. In my youth I met and lived with elderly hobos, as in from the 1930’s, who had lived the good life and then a death or divorce just put them back on the road, and none complained about their lot or lack of comforts and technology. Tramps and other homeless are very much part of industrial society.

In North America there is one group. The Hopi farmed marginal lands on the outskirts of Pueblo II era empire-building and retained their self-reliance, and were the only remnant population to resist missionization by the Spanish. .They also resisted acculturation by the Anglo conquers until the 1930s when the population divided into ‘friendlies’ and ‘traditionalists’ [Southwest Timeline of Pueblo Culture]. Of today's 12 villages on the Hopi Nation, six refuse to send representatives to the tribal government, founded in 1936 by the friendlies, as rule from outside their villages by tribal or other government officials is irrelevant, The traditionalists, as called by the friendly-to-industrial-society Hopi, make their clothes, grow their food, aren’t on the dole, don’t learn English, don’t vote, don’t send their children to be acculturated, don’t drive, don’t have electricity or smartphones, and don’t want you to visit them. All who have been assimilated claim to be whatever affiliated, but only the Hopi ‘traditionalists’ have actually successfully resisted acculturation. I was invited to teach the children from multiple tribes gathered at Standing Rock about solar cooking, and asked them about string figures [A WWW Collection of Favorite Figures]. All knew how to play video games. None knew how to do string figures. No traditional Hopi were present.

The Hopi are a remnant population of the Pueblo, which was a complex society well above the tribal or chiefdom level, so to some extent would be the traditionalist Hopi culture. The Pueblo were state-level, but the remnant Hopi traditionalists are not. In South America, in the mountains of Colombia, is a remnant population of the Tairona, a pre-Colombian complex society who traded with the Mayans. Three populations survived the Spanish genocide of 1650, but two were largely assimilated as usual. One, the Kogi, was not. It is the only state-level complex society I know of on the planet that has not been assimilated into technoindustrial society. [Sustainability Issues: The Elder Brothers’ Warning]

 

 

36. What is the significance that the total number of cell phones now exceeds the entire population of the world? July 2 Answer removed by modertor without explanation.

According to first googled source there are 8,971,209,200, mobile connections, 7,713,550,100 humans, and 5,132,491,300 unique mobile subscribers. So some people (66.5%) have one or more mobile phones (1.75 on average). This means 32.5% have not been assimilated into the Faceborg collective (yet). Or more as not everyone who has a 'smart'phone is addicted to it (yet). [1 Billion More Phones Than People In The World! BankMyCell]

I recently watched 800 students and academics walk past me on a major university campus and 60 percent were plugged in, tuned out, and getting 'informed' on their way to learn how to serve the system to make more money to buy stuff and services, i.e. to serve the growth hegemon (for a time). And, yes, some want to save the world. But what percentage and what are they learning that might give them a clue as to how? How many learn to think in systems? [https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf Thinking in Systems: A Primer]

Linus Torvalds on Social Media: 'It's a Disease. It Seems To Encourage Bad Behavior.' - Slashdot

Neal Stephenson Says Social Media Is Close To A 'Doomsday Machine' - Slashdot

'Treat Facebook Like Big Tobacco' - Slashdot

67% of Americans Use Social Media To Get Some of their News - Slashdot

Why It's So Hard To Trust Facebook - Slashdot

Fake Facebook 'Like' Networks Exploited Code Flaw To Create Millions of Bogus 'Likes' - Slashdot

The Fake News Machine: Inside a Town Gearing Up for 2020 - Slashdot

Sean Parker Unloads on Facebook 'Exploiting' Human Psychology - Slashdot

Controversial Study Claims 'Smartphone Addiction' Alters the Brain - Slashdot

Study of 500,000 Teens Suggests Association Between Excessive Screen Time and Depression - Slashdot

Controversial Study Claims 'Smartphone Addiction' Alters the Brain - Slashdot

Facebook Is a 'Living, Breathing Crime Scene,' Says Former Tech Insider - Slashdot

Breaking Up Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook Could Save Capitalism, NYU Professor Says - Slashdot

Former Google/Facebook/Mozilla Employees Will Fight Addictive Technologies - Slashdot

Say goodbye to the information age: it’s all about reputation now – Gloria Origgi | Aeon Ideas

Nearly a Third of Tech Workers Are Ready To #DeleteFacebook - Slashdot

'An Apology for the Internet -- from the People Who Built It' - Slashdot

Social Media Copies Gambling Methods 'To Create Psychological Cravings' - Slashdot

Is Facebook Ignoring Our Humanity? - Slashdot

Children Learn Best When Their Bodies Are Engaged in the Living World. We Must Resist the Ideology of Screen-Based Learning - Slashdot

Could You Live Without Your Smartphone? - Slashdot

Mark Zuckerberg-Funded Researchers Test Implantable Brain Devices - Slashdot

Link Between Social Media and Depression Stronger In Teen Girls Than Boys, Study Says - Slashdot

Post-truth politics - Wikipedia

Social Media Manipulation Rising Globally, New Oxford Report Warns - Slashdot

The Tech Industry's War On Kids - Slashdot

Fake News 'Crowding Out' Real News - Slashdot

More People Get Their News From Social Media Than Newspapers, Study Finds - Slashdot

Social Media Is Killing Discourse Because It's Too Much Like TV - Slashdot

How Facebook's Political Unit Enables the Dark Art of Digital Propaganda - Slashdot

Facebook Says 126 Million Americans May Have Seen Russia-Linked Political Posts - Slashdot

'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

Wikipedia Co-founder Slams Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter and the 'Appalling' Internet

————————————————————

And yes, I have a Facebook page I use to post the above which no one Likes or Shares, so concerns can’t be like justified or anything.

Zuckerberg, 2004: ‘Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard, just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SMS’.

[Annonomous]: ‘What? How'd you manage that one?’ Zuckerberg: ‘People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me." Dumb f--ks’.

Obviously a vintage photo.

The Facebook Scholar

4.7 billion posts per day. Believe it.

"The plethora of information available online, coupled with heavy reliance on the Internet by information seekers raise issues of the credibility or quality of information found online.... Recent concerns about credibility stem from the fact that Internet and digitization technologies both lower the cost of and increase access to information production and dissemination. The result is that more information from more sources is available and more easily accessible now than ever before...., however, nearly anyone can be an author, as authority is no longer a prerequisite for content provision on the Internet. This obviously raises issues of credibility, a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that many Web sites operate without oversight or editorial review... Additionally, there are no standards for posting information online, and digital information may be easily altered, plagiarized, misrepresented, or created anonymously under false pretenses... Because information is presented in a similar format online (i.e. Web sites), a kind of "leveling effect" is created that puts all information on the same level of accessibility, and thus all authors on the same level of credibility in the minds of Internet users.... Studies of Web-based health information substantiate fears regarding the credibility of Internet-based information by concluding that the quality of online health information varies dramatically, with much of the information being inaccurate and incomplete. (Seidman, 2006; Eysenback, Powell, Kuss, & Sa, 2002; Kunst, Groot, Latthe, & Kahn, 2002; Morahan-Martin & Anderson, 2000; Rice & Katz, 2001; Fritch & Cromwell, 2001, 2003; Johnson & Kaye, 2000; Metzger, Flanagin, Eyal, Lemus, & McCann, 2003; Rieh, 2002; Burbules, 1998)" http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.20672/epdf...

"For all its amazing benefits, the worldwide social media phenomenon epitomized by such sites as Facebook, Myspace, eBay, Twitter, and craigslist has provided manipulative people and organizations with the tools (and human targets) that allow hoaxes and con games to be perpetrated on a vast scale. In this eye-opening follow-up to her popular 2002 book, Web of Deception, Anne P. Mintz brings together a team of expert researchers, journalists, and subject experts to explain how misinformation is intentionally and unintentionally spread and to illuminate the dangers in a range of critical areas." http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2331309

"Internet addiction disorder is excessive computer use that interferes with daily life. There is debate over whether or not to include it as a diagnosis in the next DSM edition.... According to the prevailing view regarding addiction, facebook addiction can be considered as an “urge-driven disorder” with a strong compulsive component. Although our patient had been using internet for the past 7 years she had never been previously addicted to internet use. We suggest that facebook addiction may be another subcategory of the internet spectrum addiction disorders. http://www.sciencedirect.com/.../article/pii/S0924933810708464

"The growing popularity of social networking sites (SNS) among the Internet users demands an introspection of personal and social behavior of human beings. Today 1.5 billion people across the world have their profiles in social networking sites. Everything looks nice when you create a profile on social networking site, but how you feel when someone starts blackmailing using your personal data. Your boss threatens to fire you for posting comments on SNS. You feel compulsive to check Facebook during work hours. SNS becomes a reason for anxiety and addiction. It starts affecting personal relationship with spouse and family members. Such sites make private life and public life of an individual a digital document. How SNS affecting our social behavior and relationships? Are we going towards a prosperous future or a darker world of SNS? " http://search.proquest.com/.../c5f096105db54e4612cb8794a8a.../1...

"People enjoy sharing information, even when they do not believe it. Thus, misinformation (inaccurate information) and disinformation (deceptive information) diffuse throughout social networks, as misinforming and disinforming are varieties of information behaviour. Social media have made such diffusion easier and faster. Many information behaviour models, however, suggest a normative model of information as true, accurate, complete, despite the ubiquity of misinformation and
disinformation.... Misinformation and disinformation are defined and we show how they extend the concept of information through their informativeness.... Misinformation and disinformation are closely linked to information literacy, especially in terms of how they are diffused and shared and how people use both cues to credibility and cues to deception to make judgements. Misinformation and disinformation present both challenges and opportunities for individuals, businesses, and governments." https://www.hastac.org/.../do.../karlova_12_isic_misdismodel.pdf

"The misinformation effect refers to the impairment in memory for the past that arises after exposure to misleading information. The phenomenon has been investigated for at least 30 years.... The misinformation effect has been observed in a variety of human and nonhuman species. And some groups of individuals are more susceptible than others." http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/12/4/361.short

"There's an old economic principle, that bad money drives out good. One thing that worries me is that bad information is driving out good." Professor Frank Farley, 2012.

"The loudest voices should be particularly careful not to rush to conclusions." Former U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, 2012.

"The Internet is so full of junk and not-researched material." David Wallechinsky, 2014.

"Information is power. Disinformation is abuse of power." Newton Lee, 2014

"People on average have about 106 Facebook friends, but only 5 or 6 real friends." Nicholas A. Christakis

"I think at all social networks, be it Facebook or Twitter or whatever it is, there's an ecosystem that exist there. But there's also an ego system that exists there." Ashton Kutcher

"We can't blame children for occupying themselves with Facebook rather than playing in the mud. Our society doesn't put a priority on connecting with nature. In fact, too often we tell them it's dirty and dangerous." David Suzuki

"Expending less energy than was previously required to convey information one-to-one, a message can now be transmitted instantly, with little or no cost, to enormous groups of people through email and the Internet. With a very basic Web site, anyone can post a cyberspace billboard that can be viewed by the world. Message boards, online forums, discussion groups, and chat rooms also allow nameless messages; and that anonymous person can spread disinformation and present it with the credibility of a trusted friend." http://www.editlib.org/p/10832/

"In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, social network sites such as Facebook allowed users to share their political beliefs, support specific candidates, and interact with others on political issues. But do political activities on Facebook affect political participation among young voters, a group traditionally perceived as apathetic in regard to civic engagement? Or do these activities represent another example of feel-good participation that has little real-world impact, a concept often referred to as 'slacktivism'?" http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2009.0226

---------------------------------------

I have been asked occasionally to vet information prior to it being posted and shared on Facebook. Since the information was suspect, it is not surprising that all involved misinformation and/or disinformation. For the past 10 months I have been exposed to thousands of posts. Dozens of announcements per day appear in my inbox as my wife wishes to share information and I want to consider it. I do not have time to go to each Facebook page and look at the pictures, videos, or read all posts and comments much less follow all the links in the posts/comments. For the past ten months, and especially the last several months, I had kept 2 to 4 of the more active Facebook pages open in different windows and refreshed them once or several times a day, and looked over the dozens of new posts and comments in each. To actually investigate more than one or two claims made per day would have been temporally impossible assuming I did nothing else, and in practice days passed without doing more than looking over the offerings. Since I don't have time to check out hundreds of claims a day, I didn't, and so I didn't "believe" what I saw or read.

I have posted to the pages on occasion. I never link to Facebook pages or posts to make a point. Doing so would be unthinkable. I may consider the claims made in a post and follow links, but I have no way to assess claims prior to "looking into them." I look into claims, which may involve hours of research, and if I find a credible, insightful, and informative article, (and I look into the author, publisher, website reputations) I may post with an introduction and share the link. My posts have typically gone unshared and not Liked by other than my wife who "doesn't have time" to read the links but "will." Many times I have posted and within seconds I get a message that she "Liked" it without considering the link. I shared a link to a four-part article on election fraud with the intro comment that if you are asked what you think about election fraud, then if you haven't read this article, say, "I don't know enough to have an opinion." There were no comments or other indication that anyone read the articles.

I have on occasion, having nothing better to do, followed a link to alleged information, looked into it as is obligatory (and this involves checking the links within the link), and the original claim either becomes true but trivial (a dog bites man story), sort of maybe true but such a nuanced issue that literally no one on the planet understands enough to have an opinion (though many pundits claim to), or the source is a study in bias, ignorance, misinformation, and disinformation. Some posts citing information are of interest as they cite an ongoing study or legal case that MIGHT turn up something. I cannot think of one Facebook post offering that was revelatory or even insightful. I might agree with a POV expressed, but that has next to no significance. The universe doesn't care what I think.

I'm an information junky. There is absolutely no doubt that information of interest, that merits careful study and consideration, has been posted to Facebook and tweeted on Twitter. But the babies are a fraction of a percent of the total. It is temporally impossible to wade through the oceans of bathwater. There are a few humans whose grasp of reality I have vetted such that I could consider following them on Facebook or Twitter, but of the top two I can think of, one stopped tweeting a year or so ago, and I just went to the Facebook page of the other, started in 2014, and it has 36 "Likes" and I'm the 36th. Actually I didn't Like it, but I like their website, articles and books. Most likely others who read this person's books, articles, and website content don't do Facebook as it isn't a source of high quality information. Don't kill the messenger, but it isn't because it is utterly unvetted. What little there may be of quality is buried under mountains of rubbish.

For information, consider books. They are non-trivial to write and publish. Serious effort is often involved in researching and writing them. The comments on them are called book reviews, and they tend not to be toss offs either, so read them. Read the book and vet the claims. Maybe read other books by the author. And, yes, there are minor offerings found in magazines whose editorial bias can be assessed. For those deeply concerned about saving trees, there are online sources of quality information, and I won't tell you which ones. Millions will try, but each inquiring mind has to figure out how to vet sources. The effort to "know" is non-trivial; at best you can iterate towards it. Like authors of books, there are bloggers whose articles merit consideration. The difference is that blogging is trivial, and may cost nothing to indulge in terms of either time or money. Still, some blogs are as good as some books; you just have to wade through more of them to find the baby. Pretty much anything worth considering is on a web page somewhere. Again, putting up a website is almost trivial, a low bar anyone with an internet connection and time can do. Finding content on the web worth the limited time and attention all have is non-trivial.

My observation is that others glance at posts, and within seconds Like or skip over posts and Share posts with other groups (up to a dozen or so at times) without any effort to vet the content. Unasked, I have looked into (vetted) some posts. Many can be dismissed after a few minutes of fact and reputation checking. Others, the major claims, may take hours of research to consider. I have often shared issues with the person posting and the post is removed after others have had time to Like and Share it, but my critical comments, if any, go with it. Sometimes I add a comment to a post. Suggesting that there may be issues to consider about claims has been universally perceived as "being negative" and failing to "be supportive" of the community, so I have learned not to bother wasting my time or annoying the pig.

Facebook [feys-boo k / feɪs.bʊk /]

noun
1. the brand name of a social-media service and website, launched in 2004.
2. a means to spread information and misinformation: "Facebook is a cesspool of misinformation. Anyone can take a dump in it and everyone can spread the shit they Like."

verb (used with object)
3. to communicate with (a person) or search for information about (a person) by using Facebook: "My old boyfriend just Facebooked me. His future employer Facebooked him and decided to withdraw the job offer."
4. to post on Facebook: "I facebooked some photos of my cat. You should Facebook the event so more people will show up."

verb (used without object)
5. to use Facebook: "Does your mom Facebook?"

 

Note:

As no reason was given by Quora for the above being removed for 'violation', I assume I'm guilty of spamming as one of the links, the first, is to something I typed. Quora does not exist to drive traffic to one's website. As there are no ads or other monitization, my motive was to 'drive' those who also answer questions and disagree with my answers to perhaps correct me, and, hopefully, to not misinform others. So I decided to no longer spam Quora who is not bound by the Sixth Admendment to provide a charge before censor/conviction. Spending an hour or so researching an issue, answering a question that may be removed for some 'reason' only the moderator knows, is not worth the effort. But some questioners asking of me directly my name for an answer may merit replies, so I may reply to some, but I'll avoid spamming the site.

 

37. If there’s one thing that everyone could do today to help protect the environment, what would that be?

“As is your sort of mind, so is your sort of search” [A quote from The Poetical Works of Robert Browning, Volume 5], but if you’d rather know than believe, you will NOT find what you desire. You will iterate towards truth, but never know it. To change your sort of mind, a product of the current inecolate educational system, become systems science literate (ecolate). For a good start: Thinking in Systems: A Primer 2009, Donella Meadows. [Read: https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf]

 

38. Youth population in Africa is increasing at a rapid rate and this is accompanied by unemployment. What solutions, in your own capacity, would you recommend be taken to tackle this challenge?

I don’t know enough to have an opinion, so I listen to those who maybe do, and high on the list are systems scientists. H.T. Odum, systems ecologist, said, “Seek out the condition now that will come anyway.” [Energy, Ecology, Ecnomics] Africa is currently mostly a source of resources for industrial society whose growth, currently greatest in China, will not keep on keeping on throughout this century.

Those outside Africa are buying agricultural lands to support their current and future “needs”. I’m guessing the global economy will not grow as fast as expected and will peak mid-century (2025-2075). The condition that may come is that living by being employed and depending on money to buy necessities, isn’t going to work for the next thousand years.

Those in Africa who are subsistence farmers and live on less than $10/day/family, will be less affected that those who depend on shopping at Walmart open 24/7, on gasoline for their car to get there, or on the money-based fossil-fueled economy to meet wants that they mistake for needs. What’s going to work long-term, the 500-year plan, is community-based agriculture as low intensity non-industrial agriculture. A well managed agroecosystem can be productive and support a biophysical economy that provides prosperity to a population that does not exceed environmental productivity.

African families are seen as “poor” or “backward” only by those who assess value by how much money you have and how dependent you are on consuming industrial products (available for a price and only for a time). The money economy is a growth economy and you can only get paid if you serve it and are a part of it and depend on it (for a time).

A functioning culture in a managed agroecosystem is vastly more valuable. Seek out the traditional life that worked in the past now, and develop new ways of living prosperously within limits that Nature defines. Listen to Nature as our ancestors did. Growth and empire-building are only for a time, and as we are in overshoot, descent will come. The question is when, not if. Descend now for a prosperous way down as the alternative is chaotic collapse.

I can hope I’m wrong about everything, but I read the tea leaves of evidence based on best-guess systems science because I’d rather know than believe what I want to. Tell the truth to power, starting with yourself.

 

39. What size of town (population) is considered a town where everyone knows everyone?

Basically you’re asking what is Dunbar’s number for humans. For rats it is about 12, for most primates more, with humans being the most social with a number of about 150, which is pushing the maximum. For about three hundred thousands years humans lived in bands of 5 to 85 with 20 to 50 being what worked best. In a town (settlement) under 150 people, no one thinks to lock their doors and in smaller groups living together in nature most everyone trusts everyone else with their life. In urban areas today most trust no one, including family members, with their life, fortune, or recreational drugs. Dunbar's number - Wikipedia

When Hutterite groups reach 250, they split into daughter groups to reduce stress and dysfunction. America Loves the Idea of Family Farms. That’s Unfortunate.

Tepoto Island has a population of about 40, and everyone knows everyone, so life is different there than on a nearby somewhat larger island, Napuka, with a population of over 230. On Napuka people lock their doors. A journey to the Disappointment Islands.

Exceeding Dunbar’s number leads to hierarchies, control systems (religious, political, educational), and complex societies which tend to collapse after a few hundred years.

 

 

40. Why do Americans produce 12% of global municipal solid waste, despite making up just 4% of the world’s population?

Americans are (329.1/7715 or) 4.27 percent global population [U.S. Population (2019) - Worldometers] [World Population Clock: 7.7 Billion People (2019)] that consumes about 25 percent of global resources of which some fraction ends up in landfills. Energy consumption, 24%, does not as it ends up in the atmosphere. The State of Consumption Today. As for why USA is producing only 12% of global municipal waste, I don’t know.

 

41. Why do cities exist? Why don't people distribute themselves evenly around a nation? Eric Lee · Add Credential Answered 8h ago

This is a foundational big question. Twenty thousand years ago there was no known permanent settlements or complex societies exceeding Dunbar’s number of about 150 people as our ancestors were hunter-gatherer nomads living in bands of 5 to 85 people. Technology enabled some hunter-gatherer peoples to form permanent settlements. In the Pacific Northwest canoes allowed for resource gathering from a large area and transportation to a fixed settlement. Later war canoes and weapons technology allowed some to raid, plunder and enslave people of other settlements to build empires, and settlements started to become fortresses about 4,000 years ago. [Pacific Northwest - Wikipedia]

In the southern Anatolia Region of today’s Turkey, Çatalhöyük arose as a proto-city approximately 7500 BCE, peaked about 7000 BCE and lasted until 5700 BCE. It was a neolithic complex society empowered by early agriculture. Grains can be stored in a central location and agriculture greatly increases production over gathering of wild grains for the price of heavy labor. First came scattered settlements of farmers (like most hunter-gatherers, matriarchal, matrilenial) of band size populations, but some areas supported a larger population that could self-organize into larger settlements, and so some likely did for whatever reason or for no reason.

Once Dunbar’s number is exceeded hierarchies form in which elites rule commoners who labor the most. A warrior class can be supported to build empires beginning with chiefdoms who compete with other chiefdoms . Bigger chiefdoms have the advantage and so are selected for. Some develop into city-states and some regions develop into nation-states because that is what the unmanaged system of competing empire-builders selects for.

So without going on at book-length, cites exist because they are selected for, in favored locations having resources that can support complex societies before they collapse, decline, or fade away. The notion that people get together and decide to build and live in a city because they choose to is fanciful storytelling. Complex systems arise and develop according to dynamic contingencies of reinforcement, of success and failure, of what works even if only in the short term.

Agriculture enables vast amounts of foods to be produced and stored. Larger empires can subsume smaller empires. Those who for whatever reason, take from others (people or environment) prosper and a pattern of empire-building is selected for even though decline and fall is part of the pattern. The dynamic has short-term payoffs and is selected for. Growth of a metastatic cancer is also selected for in the short-term, but as it eventually destroys its host, in the long run such short termism is selected against. [Eric Lee's answer to Why does civilization fall?]

To allow people to live in smaller than city sized settlements distributed about the surface of the planet where environmental resources permit, then empire-building would have to be prevented by new ‘rules of the game’. One settlement that happened to be able to dominate, invade or conquer another would have to be stopped or if necessary destroyed to prevent empire-building from being selected for. How? Assume news of conquest or attempted conquest spreads and all settlements have agreed beforehand to send local militia to prevent the conquest or conquer the conquistadors.

One somewhat stronger settlement may be able to conquer a neighbor, but if five hundred somewhat smaller settlements each send one hundred militia totaling a force ten times the size of the aggressor (or if need be 100 times), then an overwhelming counter force could insure that there is no long-term payoff for empire-building behavior. Such ‘rules of the game’ would select for a different outcome. Instead of 200 nation-states, there could be 20,000 watershed management units living in peace and diversity, competing to manage their agroecosystem to maximize prosperity (empower) for all, including Nature’s life-support system and all organisms that are part of it, including humans, pets, and livestock WITHIN LIMITS that Nature defines. The first new rule would be LISTEN TO NATURE WHO HAS ALL THE ANSWERS. [Eric Lee's answer to What will happen if the population shrinks into one-tenth of what it is now?]

 

42. Which has a larger worldwide population, humans or fish?

On average a ton of fish will contain more fish than a ton of humans, so ‘larger’ should be measured in terms of mass. A ton of jellyfish will contain more water than a ton of lizards, so best to measure biomass in terms of tons of carbon. So is there more tons of human carbon than carbon contained in all the fish on the planet? Fish trump humans; there is more fish biomass than human biomass. Specifically, there is about 0.7 Gt C of fish and 0.06 Gt C of humans, or nearly 12 times more fish than humans.

Note that of all mammals on the planet, 4 percent are wild. Ten thousand years ago, 99 to 100 percent were ‘wild’ depending on whether you think our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who knew nothing of cars, smartphones, or empire-building, were wild. Humans are now (for a time), 36 percent of Earth’s mammalian biomass.

Source: Earth's Biomass

 

43. What is the conservative response to solving overpopulation? If we could feed everyone wouldn’t that just lead to other problems?

Asked Aug. 2018, more answers requested, so looking over prior answers I'll offer a guide for the perplexed. Given that ecology (thinking in systems https://wtf.tw/ref/meadows.pdf]) is both a subversive and conservative science, I'll offer a systems view. [e.g. Human Ecology: The Subversive, Conservative Science.pdf]

All views are at best educated views, aka guesses, but if the education system, formal and informal, is broken, then the best one can do is to vet your sources. Human ecology (including population dynamics, over or under) is a study of a complex system, one not only more complex than we understand, but more complex than we can understand in terms of prediction. This is systems science 101, first day of class stuff, that the schooling system fails to impart. The First Law of Human Ecology, as one exceptionally vilified human ecologist offered, is that 'We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable.' [Garrett Hardin - Wikipedia] Unintended consequences are the norm, and typically do more harm than good (e.g. climate change), so being conservative about making changes in a complex system is appropriate (i.e. sane).

There is no easy-peasy way to vet sources. If you look into someone like E.O. Wilson and conclude that maybe he knows enough to have an opinion, then consider what he says and the body of information he references. If a comedian hosting a popular podcast claims Earth could easily support a trillion people, but E.O. Wilson [E. O. Wilson - Wikipedia] says that if people 'want to live like North Americans, 200 million’ [Eric Lee's answer to What will happen if the population shrinks into one-tenth of what it is now?], then, well, both can't be right.

You can do what most do and believe what you want and cite evidence that supports your conclusion, or you can do what Wilson does if you'd rather know than believe, but only for the price of an effort. Wilson, like any good scientist, endeavors to listen to Nature, who ‘has all the answers’. He could be wrong about everything, but unlike most, he'd rather know that he is wrong than believe he is right. If someone gives the impression they’d rather be right (they argue and assert), then move on down the road. I tend to give those who would rather know than believe, and who listen to and reference Nature as highest authority a careful hearing. Nature doesn’t care what anyone’s belief-based opinions may be, especially mine, so why should I?

 

44. Is there any way peat from a managed bog can be considered a sustainable fuel, or is turf cutting always an irreversibly destructive process?

Per Peat - Wikipedia, most modern peat bogs formed 12,000 years ago in high latitudes after the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age and usually accumulates slowly at the rate of about a millimeter per year. After harvesting, peat regrowth takes place only in 30-40% of peatlands. Because of this, some consider peat as a fossil fuel, while others describe it as a "slowly renewable" fuel.

But eventually peat turns into lignite coal, so coal, oil, and natural gas are also slowly renewable, which sounds better to some, but any extraction of peat, coal, oil, iron ore... that is faster than formation is unsustainable, as is any farming practice (most used today) if the rate of soil loss is greater than the rate of soil formation. All mining, of soil, fuel, minerals, ground water... is unsustainable.

Evaporating saltwater to make salt which eventually ends up back in the oceans is sustainable. Farming a field and letting it remain fallow for 5 to 50 years is also sustainable as parent materials breakdown to release nutrients and nitrogen is fixed by bacteria. Modern high-intensity agriculture is supported by vast industrial inputs, energy and materials, that amount to turning fossil fuels into food, which is possible only for a time. Irrigation, other than with rainwater or distilled water, adds salts to soils that eventually become unproductive (i.e. is unsustainable). And then what?

The techno-optimist dream (or fantasy) of “energy too cheap to meter” would allow seawater to be desalinated and pumped hundreds of miles to refill the Ogallala Aquifer, to melting glaciers to snow making machines, and 100-story high farms could be built and artificially lit to “decouple” humans from the sun. But energy doing work ends up as heat, and eventually melts the surface of the earth,...

Live within limits. “Seek out the condition now that will come anyway.” —H.T. Odum, systems ecologist. [Energy, Ecology & Economics]

 

45. Is expanding to underwater cities to fight overpopulation viable?

A place to stand (or sleep) is perhaps the most fundamental and undervalued service Nature supplies as having a surface of a planet to live on is assumed and space is not in short supply compared to other needs. Air to breath is next, as being forced underwater at anytime, for more than a few seconds of breath holding, will greatly increase your appreciation of air, especially if it has oxygen in it that green planets freely provide as a waste product, and so NCE economists place no value on it as an ‘externality’. Food (energy) is next, followed by the ability to maintain homeostasis (e.g. health and temperature as clothes and a place to dwell out of rain, snow, heat, cold provides) which is also a need as distinct from a want. Do you ‘need’ a car or smartphone? Think again. Did the Romans need bread and circus? Bread (energy), but not circus, and so decline follows if not fall.

You can imagine the perfect home and living in it as a transhuman for centuries, but as Henry David Thoreau noted: ‘What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?’ [20 May. Concord, Mass. | The Walden Woods Project]. Or a tolerable human? As for planet, that would be a tolerable, functioning life-support system that could provide environmental services for onward of another billion years (if we don’t keep on keeping on [Bio 101 Mass Extinction Event IX: Pathway to Humans]) until the expanding Sol makes the planet uninhabitable by our descendants or those of the other organisms of today’s descendants.

Living underwater, like living in space or on Mars (where Elon Musk thinks he will retire [Elon Musk Says There’s a 70 Percent Chance He Will Retire on Mars]) would require vastly more energy, materials, and environmental services to create a human survivable habitat than Earth’s surface currently provides. Biosphere 2 tried and failed [Biosphere 2]. The solution to unmanaged overpopulation is rapid managed depopulation of the planet (livestock, pets, humans as currently only 4% of mammals are wild and do not need to be further depopulated, Eric Lee's answer to Which has a larger worldwide population, humans or fish?) to avoid chaotic depopulation, not to imagine expanding underwater, building floating cities on top of the oceans, terraforming Mars, or building a Dyson sphere. [Zero and counting].

Degrowth is possible, though currently unthinkable, while illimitable growth is impossible, though believed in by all Anthropocene enthusiasts (for a time). [The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth, Kenneth E. Boulding, 1966]

Space isn’t limiting, but energy is. Start thinking in systems, and 1974 was a good year; Energy, Ecology & Economics by H.T. Odum who offers to boil it down. And there is more, ‘much more’ as is inevitably said, but I’ll boil it down and suggest that those who would rather know than believe question everything, including their education and the shared narrative of empire, and follow the breadcrumbs of evidence, i.e. listen to Nature.

That the population could level off at 8 billion in 2040 [as shown in one answer] is one possible future, but not the most likely.

Projections of population growth - Wikipedia

If projected to 2200, the ‘high’ pathology pathway may peak, followed by unthinkable degrowth. Or some clever ape invents an energy source ‘too cheap to meter’ and growth continues, for a time, but the growth hegemon will climax within the solar system when all the energy output of our Sun is converted into crop, livestock, pet, and human biomass with some organisms kept in zoos to amuse, even if some humans go Borg-like to other stellar systems to repeat the pattern.

 

46. Does the current population growth trend indicating a rapid overpopulation of the Earth?

The recent trend has been one of fewer births per woman and to a lesser degree a continuing decrease in death rates overall. I am unaware of any scientist now or in history who envisioned continued population growth, at any rate, however small. Some NCE economists have, but no scientists.

Eric Lee's answer to The world's population is projected to hit 10.9 billion at the century's end, and world population could begin to plateau due to low fertility rates - will rapid growth pose a hurdle in meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals?

At some point, population growth, or any material growth, ends if we live in a finite yet unbounded universe. So climax will come, hasn’t yet, and nobody knows when, but everyone can guess. Some are professional guessers.

Does this mean that a global pandemic next year won’t peak the population at under 8 billion? Or that Elon Musk won’t invent an energy source ‘too cheap to meter’ that keeps growth of the economy going such that, to keep economic growth on the up and up, that incentives to increase the birth rate won’t work? Could the economy grow at a steady two percent for two thousand years until all energy and material in the solar system is converted to crop, livestock, pet, and human biomass living on a Dyson sphere? Maybe, but after that, growth will end.

Oh, and as for the rapid overpopulation of Earth? We’ve already done that, beginning with unsustainable fossil fuel use to empower growth about 1700.

Eric Lee's answer to At what population will the earth reach “critical mass” and no longer be able to sustain itself?

 

47. Why would it be a mistake to predict population growth based on birth rate alone?

Population growth rate, positive or negative = (Births + Immigration) - (Deaths + Emigration). Globally immigration and emigration, e.g. alien abductions or shape-shifting reptoids arriving, is insignificant so far as anyone knows. Death rate is a big unknown. That the birth rate might double next year is unlikely as a change in policy to encourage more births would likely fail. Maybe if a million dollars was offered per birth, but inflation would make a million dollars not worth much. Let’s see, currently 130 million babies a year, so double, 260 million x 1 million = $260,000,000,000,000/year or two hundred sixty trillion dollars/year, or 13.4 times the GDP of USA,to double birth rate. Lecture18-Population Growth

But just another pandemic or world war could double the death rate, neither of which would surprise a historian. Demographers don’t expect the unexpected (to them based on recent past), so forecasts beyond the near future, like weather forecasts, are not to be relied on.

 

48. As an observer, have you noticed that populations from town to town resemble one another socially and demographically? They're much the same to me.

Yes, last year I took a bus from Arizona to Mexico City. Differences between countries more apparent, but filtering out the signs being in different languages and the like, the similarities were predominate as both are fossil-fueled technoindustrial societies that select for similar forms of production and consumption. I also walked extensively. Fewer homeless in Mexico and saw van dwellers with extension cords running up to second floor apartments on side streets, which in USA would not be overlooked, but such differences are trivial compared to the repeating patterns.

Compared to small towns in Oregon, those in Mexico had fewer cars per capita and no prominent marijuana dispensaries ‘for anyone over 21’, but outposts of industrial society select for the same pattern, and so compared to an agricultural community whose residents use no money, whose village can be reached only by walking on sitting on a walking animal, the similarities within global consumer societies, from villages to mega-metro areas, are manifest and the differences are distractions (tradition Hopi villages have no electric, no cell phones, no cars, no money, make their clothes, grow their food, trust one another with their lives, do not send representatives to the tribal government that serves the ‘friendlies’.... and so actually are different).

 

49. What organization design principles promote sustainable practices? This question previously had details. They are now in a comment.

Per principles of systems ecology, to manage Man's demands on Nature's resources is ultimately a local affair. Environmental resources and productivity are local while services, e.g. oxygenation of biosphere, primary photosynthetic productivity, biotic pump, and carbon dioxide sequestration, are global life-support system benefits. Imagine the habitable land area of Earth is managed by those living in each of 25,000 watersheds averaging about 1,000 sq mi (2,600 sq km) in area with perhaps an average population of 10,000 people which implies complex societies and control SYSTEMs.

There are limits placed on watershed management units by a global Federation of Watersheds such that none can exploit more than 20% of a watershed's resources, and none can solve a population longage of demand issue by exporting migrants (livestock, pets, humans) as no watershed will be forced to accept the surplus population generated my the failed policies of another watershed. Trade would be based on emdollar evaluation of sustainable exports and managed globally via equitable policies.

Members of a watershed's militia would provide for needed transportation as well as help to project a United Watershed military force to prevent a non-member or stronger former watershed member from conquering a weaker watershed. Otherwise management of human behavior to maintain a viable equilibrium between Man's demands and Nature's resources is a local issue provided failure is allowed. A diversity of watershed management units is alternative to failing to manage a global empire as dynamic growth hegemon.

 

 

50. What does anyone think about this Federation Calendar proposed for a post-empire-building future?

I asked this question with link to Federation Calendar. No answers. Apparently you have to request an answer. Quora provids lists based on number of answers for various topics. So you have to pick a topic, then pick from the list of those, based on their name, who have answered questions on that topic/subect. Those picking from the list can pick up to 25 a day to spam. That any requesting answers have read prior answers by the one spammed is unlikely or not implied. It is possible to search for individuals and invite them to answer, but no way to inform them that you have read prior answers and are personally inviting them to answer yours. Quora also sends email lists of questions that may be answered, but they also provide the links for questioners to spam. Requesting an answer is required, so no special interest implied. I spammed 200 others who had answered questions in category 'calendars' and got one answer that explained why alternative calendars are not needed, without mention of proposed calendar or any evidence they read about it.

Those who may disagree or question claims may leave a comment, but doing so seems rare. No feedback with 8.4K views. The 20 'upvotes' imply someone actually read and considered the answer good or helpful, but that may merely indicate they are as misinformed as I am. Quora is not a forum for having claims vetted though doing so is possible.

 

 

On occasion I answer other questions. Quora Q&A 2.