Jack Daw

Could you link me to some of them, please?
There's way too much from that university.

I'm not sure I get this.

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Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Nicolas Naranja

From the same David Pimental, that I distrust as an energy economist. His specialty is population ecology. Getting large groups of people to willingly give up prosperity is a losing battle.


Some people are starting to ask just how many people the Earth can support if we want to cease degrading the environment and move to a sustainable solar energy system? There is no solid answer yet, but the best estimate is that Earth can support about 1 to 2 billion people with an American Standard of living, good health, nutrition, prosperity, personal dignity and freedom. This estimate suggests an optimal U.S. population of 100 to 200 million. To achieve this goal, humans must first stabilize their population and then gradually reduce their numbers to achieve a sustainable society in terms of both economics and environmental resources. With fair policies and realistic incentives, such a reduction in the human population can be achieved over the next century.

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Richard

Cornell is considered one of the leading centers for studies earth-sustainable agriculture, and many aspects of agriculture in general. It has been for decades, and in that sense I agree the number of journal publications alone is daunting. If you find the subject engaging, you might start by perusing the faculty list and their publications. I wish I had the time to be a reference librarian for you, but ... oh well. Here are a few tidbits from of David Pemintel (now emeritus) and Christian Peters (now at Tufts): "FOOD, LAND, POPULATION and the U.S. ECONOMY", "World Population, Agriculture, and Malnutrition", and "Testing a complete-diet model for estimating the land resource requirements of food consumption and agricultural carrying capacity" (summary) (journal article).

I agree on both points.

Back in the early 1960's, some population study determined that if the earth's human population were all in one place, it would roughly fit in an area equal to the land area of the African island of Zanzibar. This fact is quoted in Brenner's futuristic novel of the day, and by the end of the story some of the population would be standing beyond the shoreline.

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harveyc

To decrease population, we need to seek volunteers for folks over 50 to die early. I'm not willing to do so. We can't rely on reduced birth rates and have a smaller and smaller working force support us old geezers.

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Jack Daw

Yup, I just want some basic articles to make a picture. As far as population dynamic's concerned, I have absolutely no worries. Nature has always limited species in this. In my lifetime and before 2100 I believe the real issue will be people not having enough children. But that won't concern you and probably by the time it comes neither me.

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Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Richard

That is a very apocalyptic view.

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Nicolas Naranja

If children born in the past decade in this country only had one child on average, the US population might be halved by 2100, but that would depend on zero net migration. The bigger problem that I see in this country is that the "fittest" individuals are simply not having enough children. The bright, talented people of this country wait until they are in their 30s to start having children, while the high school dropout living in a trailer has 8 children from 6 different men, 5 of which are in prison. Of course, willingness to mate would be selected for trait. 2100 may look like a vegas brothel.

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Jack Daw

Yeah... but because it takes so much time for your "fittest" to get the "basic background".
What we in Europe consider as basic priviliges (free health care, free education - even the university education,...) - it all creates a debt for your young generation - they owe ridiculous amounts of money without actually producing something.

The question also is - who would migrate under this scenario in 2100? All the major developed countries will be fighting the loss of original population and the need for skilled and qualified immigrants is extreme even nowadays. This net loss of populus will be dominant in Eastern European countries, China - major contributors of immigration to the rest of the Europe and Australia... India will still be probably "producing" many people but the question is - who will care (economically) for the elderly? It's a very serious problem even now.

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Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Richard

People will view less populace as less mouths to feed. Any and every piece of arable land will be viciously defended or acquired. Xenophobia will run wild as people become hysterical about perceived threats to their local food production.

Actually for that scenario, only 2 out of 6 are in prison ... which does not make your scenario any better or take anything away from your conclusion.

I'm all for paring back the US child credit on income taxes to a maximum of two -- or eliminating it altogether, plus charging $1000 for a birth permit. Over-population is just not science fiction anymore.

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Nicolas Naranja

As bad as the USA is in terms of providing well-being to its citizenry, it still has the laws set up to encourage entrepreneurship. The US has some core values and fundamentals that will always attract people. A population crash is a definite cluster**** for just about everything that depends on their being more people. The USA has housing for well over 300 million people, what happens when there are only 150 million people here. You also have a tremendous concentration of wealth for individuals who happen to be from these much more common small families. That has become an issue recently for me. You have divorced parents and then grandparents and unfortunately they are all not in good health and before you know it you are trying to sell off all the accumulated property of 6 people. Of course, being able to sell these homes depends on their being people to sell them to. I just hope the USA can make it itself attractive to immigrants in the future, we need them over here to buy houses and shop in our stores and consume electricity and do work. As far as skill goes, the migrant farm worker is at the same skill level as the migrant programmer. Anyone can pick oranges, but the speed that the farm worker does it at is the skilled part of it.

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Some people go bananas, I went plantains.

Jack Daw

Wow. Why the hell have I been studying so hardly?

__________________
Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Nicolas Naranja

Society doesn't value the picker. Harvesting lettuce, tomatoes, oranges or sweet corn is a piece rate activity where you are paid according to how many packages you pick. A skilled harvester will make over $100/day, but you've got people making between $70 and $150. You could do it for six months and never figure out how to do it quickly, 10hrs/day 6 days/week.

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Some people go bananas, I went plantains.