tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post1914613531324225633..comments2024-03-25T17:38:55.490-07:00Comments on Dar Kush: Deep Phobic MemorySteven Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-4979742450280120672010-01-22T12:43:11.753-08:002010-01-22T12:43:11.753-08:00Steve,
Thank you. I don't feel disrespected ...Steve,<br /><br />Thank you. I don't feel disrespected by you and never have.<br /><br />But this <i>is</i> one of my hot-button issues -- as hot a hot-button issue for me as "Sambo Alerts" are for you, I suspect.<br /><br />Why I react that way would be a long and somewhat autobiographical ramble about my world view, politics, life experiences, etc. But, just as you can be sensitive to racial discrimination in the media and yet have cogent things to so, so, likewise, do I think that it's possible for me to be strongly motivated about this <i>and</i> still have rational arguments why we can not merely survive, but live well, with 10 billion human beings.<br /><br />Long story short: I think the decision whether we are going to try to have "Survival With Style" (as Jerry Pournelle has put it), or not, is <i>the</i> political decision of our generation, and I think it's one that's going to have vast consequences for the well-being and liberties of humankind. In particular I think it's going to have a huge effect on whether we continue to be a society in which progressive politics have some chance of working in the real world, versus one that becomes ... well, "very reactionary" is the best way of summarizing it.<br /><br />As Larry Niven put it: "Peasants don't manufacture contraceptives." And people who haven't made a conscious decision to have high levels of economic productivity and growth in spite of having 10 billion human beings are very unlikely to retain more than the vestiges of a free and equal society.<br /><br />I care about this stuff, a lot, which is why I have Ph.D. in molecular biology and work in a research lab. Think of this as my equivalent of caring about what happens to Blacks in America, and maybe you'll get a sense of how motivated I am. It really is that big a deal for me.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-62177160149681980492010-01-22T08:53:03.084-08:002010-01-22T08:53:03.084-08:00May I also say, Erich, that your attitude (if I...May I also say, Erich, that your attitude (if I'm right about it's origins) saved the human race from extinction? If I wish to question its universal usefulness, it does not mean that those with that belief pattern are broken, stupid, oblivious or anything else. This is a critical discussion to have, affecting the survival of our species, and it must be had with real care and concern for the attitudes of both sides. If in any way you didn't feel that respect from me, allow me to make my respect for your mind and heart crystal-clear.Steven Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-68730700449327323662010-01-22T08:37:51.653-08:002010-01-22T08:37:51.653-08:00"I really don't buy this idea that the wo..."I really don't buy this idea that the world already has too many people and that we're therefore doomed unless we kill off or forcibly sterilize billions of people."<br />I didn't say that, Erich, and isn't bringing that into the discussion seems further afield from the actual conversation as me thinking that part of human behavior may be driven by ancient memories of near-extinction. Yes, I am seriously troubled by the fact that those on your side of the argument are willing to accept no upper limits to human population. It doesn't matter what the theoretical discussions are, in that sense. I don't deny that it is POSSIBLE that we could support ten times the current population, or more. I just also think that we do ourselves no conceivable good by heading in that direction, and much historical harm. I'm perfectly aware that things MAY be all right in that process. But there is simply an endless list of potential problems that would be no issue at all if the world population were smaller. And the endless growth image becomes more and more delicate, more and more dependent upon technologies and resources that exist only in the mind, or in labs. And I think of the Rat City experiments, where overcrowded rodents tear out the throats of their young...and just see nothing good at all coming from the thought that we can continue like this indefinitely. I may be wrong--but if I am, what have we lost? If human beings can be motivated to have no more than two children (I'm not suggesting a methodology, just that the discussion may be critical. Awareness motivates action by itself) then we may miss a few Mozarts and Hitlers, but since I don't really believe in the Great Man hypothesis, doesn't seem to matter. If you're wrong, on the other hand, the entire thing could crash. Billions die. Seems to me that the cost-benefit analysis just doesn't justify the belief that we can support an endless population.Steven Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-42129137947083700232010-01-22T08:25:57.672-08:002010-01-22T08:25:57.672-08:00Steve: I'm not saying we carry that memory in ...Steve: I'm not saying we carry that memory in our genes. I'm saying that it seems to be encoded in our stories, especially our religious texts. It isn't a real "theory" at all--totally untested, just a wondering aloud.Steven Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13630529492355131777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-89361327501522129552010-01-22T02:08:35.176-08:002010-01-22T02:08:35.176-08:00For whatever reason, hyperlinks weren't workin...For whatever reason, hyperlinks weren't working. So I'll repost my hyperlink yet again, with the URL spelled out to make it Blogger-proof.<br /><br />Here is the argument by John McCarthy I've tried to cite twice, on the sustainability of human progress:<br /><br /><a href="http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html" rel="nofollow"><br />http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html</a><br /><br />Please do read it; McCarthy's the inventor of Lisp and a reasonably rational guy.<br /><br />Another person you might want to argue with personally is Jerry Pournelle. His <i>Step Further Out</i> made the same arguments as McCarthy, decades earlier. It's sad that arguments Pournelle made in the late 1970s still need to be made again now, but so it goes.<br /><br />Finally, David MacKay, a professor of physics at Cambridge, has written a fine extended argument for the sorts of technological innovations McCarthy advocates.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.withouthotair.com/" rel="nofollow"><br />http://www.withouthotair.com/</a><br /><br />MacKay does this as a proposed strategy for dealing with global warming, something that McCarthy is less motivated by, but since they're both rational technophiles their arguments noticeably converge in the sections on nuclear power.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-44664476536038876352010-01-22T01:55:59.228-08:002010-01-22T01:55:59.228-08:00Steve,
1. I didn't just claim that we could s...Steve,<br /><br />1. I didn't just claim that we could support 10 billion humans well; I cited <a rel="nofollow">detailed arguments</a> for why that might be so. Before claiming that I'm the unwitting psychic pawn of a 100,000-year-old racial phobia, could you please take the trouble to read the arguments I cited, and either agree with them or refute them factually or logically?<br /><br />2. The reason you won't see me give a hard maximum number of human beings that the Earth can support is that such a number probably doesn't exist as a single constant, the way that the speed of light in a vacuum does. As others have pointed out, with 1400 A.D.-type technology, we couldn't even get past a billion humans, let alone the 6.5 billion we've got today. With the sort of technology we could easily have by 2100 A.D., 10 billion humans might seem downright pastoral and underpopulated. If you doubt that, consider how much room we'd have if seasteading became practical, let alone if manned space travel became as easy as transcontinental air travel -- an impossibility in 1900 A.D. -- is today.<br /><br />3. I didn't answer earlier because I had two very busy workdays at Caltech. One thing I heard about yesterday morning was a new machine from Illumina that can sequence a human genome fully for something like $20K. This is in comparison to the $100M that the first human genome cost. The price is expected to drop further -- probably to $1K per person -- by 2012 or so.<br /><br />The world isn't static. Human beings can do vast new things if they set their minds to it. Part of my reason for optimism is that I work, for a living, in the business of doing those new things (on an individually puny scale, admittedly). A bigger reason for my optimism is that I spend all day working with people who are smarter and more productive than I am.<br /><br />I really don't buy this idea that the world already has too many people and that we're therefore doomed unless we kill off or forcibly sterilize billions of people. I admit that idea's quite popular, and considered "realistic" by some, but I don't find it either rationally or morally persuasive.<br /><br /><br />--Erich SchwarzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-4575497230692247842010-01-21T19:25:30.263-08:002010-01-21T19:25:30.263-08:00Steve, I think you might have something there... b...Steve, I think you might have something there... but might we also look a little closer to the present to understand what we might do to address this problem of vision?<br /><br />Alice Miller has been doing some extraordinary work in the field of understanding human behaviour as a result of childhood experiences.<br /><br />http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php<br /><br />Her work has shown that the destruction of empathy in the child leads to the blindness in our society to the obvious problems we face. <br /><br />Lloyd deMause, director of The Institute for Psychohistory, has published a massive amount of work on applying the same principles that Alice Miller deals with to a global historical scale.<br /><br />Two of his articles are referenced below:<br /><br />http://www.psychohistory.com/originsofwar/03_psychology_neurobiology.html<br /><br />http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln07_evolution.html<br /><br />Something to wrap one's wits around, no?Paul Gibbonsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-64255264512223904432010-01-21T16:25:08.641-08:002010-01-21T16:25:08.641-08:00As mentioned the rate of population growth has bee...As mentioned the rate of population growth has been declining since the sixties. The fastest growing segment of the world population is the over 65 bracket.<br /><br />But I think it is really impossible to talk about "overpopulation" independently from the social, economic and technological relations of a society. To do otherwise is to accept some pretty unsavory premises and policy decisions.<br /><br />To put it bluntly there has never been a time when the "haves" (whether defined by race, class, or education) didn't think that there weren't too many of the "have nots". Marx and Engels wrote rather extensively on this in their condemnation of Malthus' theories, which they showed to be both unhistorical and unsupported by facts. I think the same thing is true of neo-Malthusians today.<br /><br />The problem of poverty and hunger in the world is not caused by overpopulation. It is a question of social relations. The poorest continent in the world, Africa, is not overpopulated. If anything it is decidedly underpopulated. Many of its issues with food delivery and hunger are caused and worsened by subsidized US and European food exports.<br /><br />In the US alone, there is enough food produced for everyone to eat 8 full meals a day but there are 40 million Americans that can't put food on the table and are classified as "food insecure".<br /><br />Hunger has increased over the past 30 years even as growth in food production has exceeded growth in population.<br /><br />Without talking about both the contradictions in capitalism and the technological advancements which capitalism made possible, we can't really fix issues of "overpopulation" or overfishing, deforestation, global warming, environmental degradation or any number of related topics.Shady_Gradyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00996625985002373392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-64849107075955596832010-01-21T16:20:37.900-08:002010-01-21T16:20:37.900-08:00You know, Steve, one of the reasons that I read yo...You know, Steve, one of the reasons that I read your blog is that you make an effort to see more than one side of issues and do not leap to demonize those with whom you disagree. Too many blog writers seem to find pleasure at picking at their partisan sores while at the same time attacking others for having blemishes. <br /><br />MarcoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-50391423161004717882010-01-21T14:00:28.048-08:002010-01-21T14:00:28.048-08:00"How many people can we support?" really..."How many people can we support?" really depends upon the answer "At what level of technology and at what rate of technological advancement?"<br /><br />The world could _not_ support 10 Billion people at a 1400 level of technology and a 1400 rate of technological advancement.<br /><br />I could easily see the world supporting 10 billion 2010 first worlders though. The key point in that equation would be instead of 3-5 billion (depending upon you definition) poor people who don't really contribute to the rate of technological advance, you'd have a much larger market and research base to draw upon so the rate of technological advance would be vastly faster than that of today.<br /><br />Technology _creates_ resources. Let me repeat that gain for emphasis, technology _creates_ resources. Think of the North Sea Oil deposits. Completely undrillable with 1910 technology - so it couldn't really be considered a resource. Today? Major source of oil. <br /><br />Now think of asteroids or anything else in space. Completly economically unreachable with 2010 tech. But if we can economically mine them with 2110 tech, then we have, in a very real sense, created a new resource.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03809695211324940345noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-5513970940499545182010-01-21T13:11:20.916-08:002010-01-21T13:11:20.916-08:00BTW, buy Wifi jammer to jam all spy devices in you...BTW, buy <a href="http://www.tayx.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">Wifi jammer</a> to jam all spy devices in your room or at work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-57497958872903868712010-01-21T12:08:20.163-08:002010-01-21T12:08:20.163-08:00I'd like to see some more research on the noti...I'd like to see some more research on the notion that we all carry a species memory running back to the protohuman days. As a theory, it lacks proof.<br /><br />Much easier to see why an event that happened in great\grandpaw's day might be passed along and inculcated early. If your mother tells you story her father told her, and his father told him, that can sink into the unconscious and the source be forgotten. <br /><br />That your great-time-fifty grandpaw got et by a sabertooth lion and thus you won't get a house cat hasn't been demonstrated as anything close to valid. <br /><br />Cram enough rats into a small enough space without enough food and water, you'll see what will eventually happen to us if we don't control our population ...Steve Perryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12079658447270792228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9339191.post-73791430472929178772010-01-21T11:09:47.441-08:002010-01-21T11:09:47.441-08:00Historically when one group of humans has run low ...Historically when one group of humans has run low on resources they have invaded the territory of other groups of humans in order to obtain more resources for themselves. I hate to be the pessimist, but if we do get to the point where there aren't enough resources to support the world population I fear given today's weapons that we may well end up on the extinct species list.Marty Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465745755940914756noreply@blogger.com