The Wow I Can't Believe That News Story Thread

[Anteater]

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

^ I strongly disagree with this statement, [MERIT]. Worldwide we have reached unprecedented population levels and no-one can confidently say how many more people the planet will support.



"Exponential" is a mathematical way of saying "out of control", and as this graph goes right off the scale I think it's irresponsible to promote the unfounded idea that there's plenty more pie for everyone if we only share it out differently. Take a look at this thread to see some of the probs now arising:- https://www.musicbanter.com/current-...terthread.html

I'm going to disagree with your assertion here. Read point 6. on this article.

6 Futuristic Movie Scenarios Already Disproven By Science | Cracked.com

[OccultHawk]

Particularly when nobody sitting in the audience sees themselves as part of the excess population.

Never fails that that little moronic jab is thrown in.

Everything in that is wrong. And yes, everyone still living is part of the problem.

I guess this retard contingent is pretty solidified.

[Anteater]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Never fails that that little moronic jab is thrown in.

Everything in that is wrong. And yes, everyone still living is part of the problem.

I guess this retard contingent is pretty solidified.

Yeah who needs facts or whatever. Everyone's just ****ed. The end.

[Lisnaholic]

Originally Posted by Anteater

I'm going to disagree with your assertion here. Read point 6. on this article.
6 Futuristic Movie Scenarios Already Disproven By Science | Cracked.com

From Anteater's article:-

The idea that we're heading toward a population crisis might seem frighteningly feasible to anyone who has ever visited a shopping mall, but the problem isn't as dire when you look at the data. Economists like Max Roser point out that across the world, fertility rates are in fact shrinking. Today, the average household has around 2.5 children, as opposed to the five or six that our horndog ancestors had on average during the 1960s.

^ It's very misleading to quote fertility rates without mentioning a couple of caveats that invalidate the conclusion the writer is trying to draw:-

Caveat #1: the fertility rate may be decreasing, but as the infant mortality rate is also decreasing, this reduces the significance of the reduction in fertility.

Caveat #2: (Using the figures in Anteater's article and reading off my graph):
If, in 1 A.D., 0.5 billion people had 6 children each = 3 billion new babies
If in 2018, 7.5 billion people have 2.5 babies each = 18.75 billion new babies.

Of course those birth totals aren't real statistics: I've made no adjustment for the number of fertile women per capita because I didn't want to get bogged down in math, but the trend of the figures is clear enough, I think.

If a little thing called "history" is to be believed, this (in conjunction with increased modernization, lower poverty rates, and a rise in education levels across the world) means population sizes will level off fairly soon.

^ Aside from the patronising tone of the phrase, "a little thing called history", the writer compounds his inability to understand the significance of fertility rates for an expanding population and goes on to make a completely unfounded statement, "population sizes will level off fairly soon." Again, refering to my graph, the only significant "levelling off" ever was at the time of the Black Death, when the world pop briefly went down.

Sorry, Anteater. I find your article very unconvincing but I'm too tired to refute its other points right now.

[OccultHawk]

Originally Posted by Anteater

Yeah who needs facts or whatever. Everyone's just ****ed. The end.

Here’s a fact that isn’t very confusing. We count people by the billions and other large animal by the thousands. Just the numbers of gorillas and elephants vs people say it all. If you think that’s a reasonable balance you’re stupid. If you look at that J Curve population growth chart and not get that it. ****ing Jesus.

[DwnWthVwls]

I think there is an in between here that makes both of you kind of correct. IF we don't change things we are probably approaching capacity, but technology has a lot to offer so I don't think we have a good grasp of potential capacity with the use of technology not yet discovered, developed, or implemented.

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Here’s a fact that isn’t very confusing. We count people by the billions and other large animal by the thousands. Just the numbers of gorillas and elephants vs people say it all. If you think that’s a reasonable balance you’re stupid. If you look at that J Curve population growth chart and not get that it. ****ing Jesus.

Lol. What? That's a non-point if I've ever heard one. What the **** does the ratio of elephants to people have to do with the amount of people the earth can sustain? Why do we have to be balanced with other species? Ants outnumber us by far and fungus dominates the planet. How do you feel about the ratio of bacteria to humans?

[Anteater]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Here’s a fact that isn’t very confusing. We count people by the billions and other large animal by the thousands. Just the numbers of gorillas and elephants vs people say it all. If you think that’s a reasonable balance you’re stupid. If you look at that J Curve population growth chart and not get that it. ****ing Jesus.

Dude, you'd have to be a complete idiot who hasn't kept pace with current technology and trends to come to that kind of conclusion. Neither you nor Lisna take those things into account yet you snub the conclusions of what I posted.

https://www.wired.com/story/lab-grown-meat/

Everything you think you know about food production is going to be a thing of the past as early as the next decade. There's also hundreds of thousands of miles of land out there that will become habitable as biotech and our grasp on agricultural tech advances continue to evolve. These aren't pipe dreams, but an inevitable place we will arrive at based on where we are right now.

And Lisna, I'm not disagreeing with your overall analysis (taken on its own with all other variables ignored), but beyond women who are infertile I don't see any info on mortality rates, statistics related to deaths caused by disease, etc. etc. You have to factor those things in, along with paradigm shifts in biotech and whatever else is going on out there that you haven't factored in.

[OccultHawk]

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5...b00310edf5b1b2

SCIENCE
09/16/2015 08:49 pm ET
Ocean Fish Populations Cut In Half Since The 1970s: Report
Populations of some commercial fish stocks, such as a group including tuna, mackerel and bonito, had fallen by almost 75 percent.

It’s not bears and seagulls pushing the seas into lifelessness, it’s people.

Run some math by you:

7 billion people eat more fish than 5 billion
5 billion people eat more fish than 1 billion
1 billion people eat more fish than 50 million

1 person = 1 consumer of resources
7 billion people = 7 billion consumers of resources

7,000,000,000 > 1

there are 250,000 metric tons of plastic in our oceans.

7 Billion people use more plastic than 5 Billion
5 Billion people use more plastic than 1 Billion

The reason there’s so much plastic in the ocean is because billions of people use plastic products.

Bears and elephants don’t use plastic. It simply must be the people.

How hard do you have to ****ing think about it to get that more people use more ****? Is this really something that people have to be taught?

[Anteater]

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...lastic-bottles

Game changer boi, game changer. We're only a few years away from some variant of the enzyme discussed here being used by governments and corporations with gusto. And it'll be profitable, which means it will be used in earnest on those dastardly plastics.

[Lucem Ferre]

Originally Posted by Frownland

Please discuss your silly ideas without name calling.

It's funny because you never specified a name so the vague post could be aimed at both of us but he took it personally because he knows his ideas are silly.