"That’s one of the nice things about this Substack: "
I find most posters to be rather ill informed. They see that this is alternative and well, that makes them think that anything goes, and it usually does.
Sure entropy is supposed to increase, but we can control the harm we do, such as going to the IFR and drive our population to a susta…
"That’s one of the nice things about this Substack: "
I find most posters to be rather ill informed. They see that this is alternative and well, that makes them think that anything goes, and it usually does.
Sure entropy is supposed to increase, but we can control the harm we do, such as going to the IFR and drive our population to a sustainable level that would result in a sustainable world in which everyone, including all nonhuman animals, would have more than enough resources to live comfortably.
Who is to determine what’s “sustainable”? There are 8 billion people-who is to determine who is to live and die?
I mention entropy, because it is at least a theoretically measurable quantity. I would agree there is a bit of a quandary, because the Industrial Revolution started before we knew anything about entropy. Without an objective way to judge what’s best (e.g. thermodynamics), we’re stuck with an elite deciding subjectively what’s best for the rest of us, usually in their favor.
Sustainable is not depleting resources and enabling functional ecosystems, among other things. No one has to die, all we need to do is develop policies that get people to stop having kids, to drive the population to well below 2 billion ASAP while we close the loops from waste back to manufacture.
We can control entropy, we just need to make the effort.
What you say makes total theoretical sense, but consider who you have to convince! Let's take an arbitrary number, say 100 years. It would take an average population decrease of 1.4% per year (not resorting to genocide, just people not having kids) to get there (8 billion to 2 billion). For a lot of us (including myself), a lot of our life meaning is around having a family--you would have to convince us otherwise that saving the planet took precedence.
Alexander Herzen, one of my favorites, relates this conversation with Louis Blanqui, one of the early "save society" leaders in the 19th century:
"Human life is a great social duty." [Louis Blanqui}
"Why?" I asked suddenly.
"How do you mean, 'why?' -but surely the whole purpose and mission of man is the well-being of society?"
"But it will never be attained if everyone makes sacrifices and nobody enjoys himself."
"You are playing with words."
"The muddle-headedness of a barbarian," I replied, laughing.
Of course, it's not society to be saved nowadays, but the planet, but the idea is the same. I think you would have great difficulty convincing enough people of your strategy without violent coercion, as happened with Blanqui's fellow-travellers (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc.).
If governments were to develop policies and culture to make childlessness positive, improve the status of women, provide adequate health care to reduce infant mortality, etc, while at the same time closing the loop from waste to manufacture, ending the animal-based meat industry, improving the urban environment, etc, it could happen.
We just need enough people to recognize that what we have isn't working. For example, people need to accept that the earth supports our excessive population only because so many do with so little and ecosystems are a bit more resilient. For example, 5% of the world's population, the US, uses ~25% of the earth's production. Therefore, for all people to live at our consumption level, we'd need to increase earth's production 5X or reduce our consumption to 1/5th, both are impossible. So, accept reality and decide to make the required changes to avoid total collapse. That's were we are.
"That’s one of the nice things about this Substack: "
I find most posters to be rather ill informed. They see that this is alternative and well, that makes them think that anything goes, and it usually does.
Sure entropy is supposed to increase, but we can control the harm we do, such as going to the IFR and drive our population to a sustainable level that would result in a sustainable world in which everyone, including all nonhuman animals, would have more than enough resources to live comfortably.
Who is to determine what’s “sustainable”? There are 8 billion people-who is to determine who is to live and die?
I mention entropy, because it is at least a theoretically measurable quantity. I would agree there is a bit of a quandary, because the Industrial Revolution started before we knew anything about entropy. Without an objective way to judge what’s best (e.g. thermodynamics), we’re stuck with an elite deciding subjectively what’s best for the rest of us, usually in their favor.
Sustainable is not depleting resources and enabling functional ecosystems, among other things. No one has to die, all we need to do is develop policies that get people to stop having kids, to drive the population to well below 2 billion ASAP while we close the loops from waste back to manufacture.
We can control entropy, we just need to make the effort.
What you say makes total theoretical sense, but consider who you have to convince! Let's take an arbitrary number, say 100 years. It would take an average population decrease of 1.4% per year (not resorting to genocide, just people not having kids) to get there (8 billion to 2 billion). For a lot of us (including myself), a lot of our life meaning is around having a family--you would have to convince us otherwise that saving the planet took precedence.
Alexander Herzen, one of my favorites, relates this conversation with Louis Blanqui, one of the early "save society" leaders in the 19th century:
"Human life is a great social duty." [Louis Blanqui}
"Why?" I asked suddenly.
"How do you mean, 'why?' -but surely the whole purpose and mission of man is the well-being of society?"
"But it will never be attained if everyone makes sacrifices and nobody enjoys himself."
"You are playing with words."
"The muddle-headedness of a barbarian," I replied, laughing.
Of course, it's not society to be saved nowadays, but the planet, but the idea is the same. I think you would have great difficulty convincing enough people of your strategy without violent coercion, as happened with Blanqui's fellow-travellers (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc.).
"but consider who you have to convince!"
I have and I don't have much hope, but there is hope as seen here:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/economichistory/2021/12/07/when-fertility-in-latin-america-collapsed/
If governments were to develop policies and culture to make childlessness positive, improve the status of women, provide adequate health care to reduce infant mortality, etc, while at the same time closing the loop from waste to manufacture, ending the animal-based meat industry, improving the urban environment, etc, it could happen.
We just need enough people to recognize that what we have isn't working. For example, people need to accept that the earth supports our excessive population only because so many do with so little and ecosystems are a bit more resilient. For example, 5% of the world's population, the US, uses ~25% of the earth's production. Therefore, for all people to live at our consumption level, we'd need to increase earth's production 5X or reduce our consumption to 1/5th, both are impossible. So, accept reality and decide to make the required changes to avoid total collapse. That's were we are.