Will Humanity Murder or Prosper?

1. World population is obviously going to increase & increase. However rather than use science to reduce it (and subsequently world economic wealth, which would affect the world’s economic elite very much) I think the real answer rests in using science to sustain it. I myself believe in a future where we can produce limitless electricity & industrial-transport fuel from e.g. existing nuclear technology, where the waste is also destroyed using again existing (but rarely built) nuclear technology. But there are other ways this can be done, e.g. with solar if certain breakthroughs can be made.
2. I believe that since only one third of this planet is land, and two thirds is ocean there is no shortage of copper and other metals on this planet, and by the time there will be (several centuries till ocean reserves are depleted) we’ll be dropping it into desserts from mines on the moon-mars.
3. I believe it is within science to convert electrical energy into food energy, and therefore to have a world population several times greater than it is today using several times less the land.
4. It is possible to recycle and make money out of it, and this probably even includes fishing plastic out the ocean. Again technology is key: www.politicsforum.co.uk...

Getting Here…
Unfortunately right now we are not investing enough in R&D. We have not bothered to subsidise e.g. ocean mining, because that’s against extremely short sighted free market thinking-ideology. Consequently there will be shortages of food, metals, and inflation which at the hands of the poorest people getting a fraction of our living standards, could result in a real terms decrease in Western living standards.

This where unhinged ideas of using science (i.e. biological warfare dressed up as natural) could come into play. Likewise war could be deliberately generated to gain access to dwindling resources. But it is (for now at least) both morally & practically the wrong direction to be heading in.

War is expensive and making investments-subsidies in science-R&D is a lot more productive than making complete loss making expenditures on e.g. artillery shells.
And whilst it is cheap to kill people with e.g. germs, it is very wasteful (and in that sense expensive) given the wealth and contributions to world share prices them living could & would achieve.
But it really is a choice between spending more into R&D and on spending killing millions-billions in order to prevent Western decline.

Furthermore: The amount spent on R&D could be doubled at zero government cost if…
1. Patents lasted longer (and therefore were worth more, which would in turn justify & encourage more private sector investment in getting them established). The maximum any kind of patent lasts is just 20 years, inventors.about.com... whilst copyright can lasts up to 70 years after you’re death…
www.ipo.gov.uk...
2. If patents become easier to apply for (rather like copyright is easy to do www.abovetopsecret.com... ) and therefore more ordinary people would do something with their Eureka moments (like share it with others) rather than sit on them, or take them to the grave, in the vague hope of one day getting a patent.
The single worst aspect of our worldwide patent system is that (even if you are the inventor) the moment you publish your idea, is the same moment you lose any chance of patenting it. Patents can only be applied before the idea is published.

Crucial to the success of a patent is that the product or process claimed by the patent is inventive and the invention is not part of the 'prior art'.
This means that the invention must not have been made available to the public before the priority date. For most countries in the world, this is the date on which the patent was originally filed at the applicable patent office. www.eurekamagazine.co.uk...

www.ipo.gov.uk...

Populations, of any species tend to balance themselves. It seems any particular one that over grows will be almost wiped out by disease, usually. Humans are not different or special.

To answer your title statement, I think mankind will do both. Murder and prosper, this has been our history, I have not noted any evolutionary changes in our baser instincts so I expect we will continue to repeat ourselves until some outside force or circumstance destroys us.

Iamschist Populations, of any species tend to balance themselves. It seems any particular one that over grows will be almost wiped out by disease, usually. Humans are not different or special.

I don’t know about that. We are the first species to have consciously wiped out our biggest killers e.g. the smallpox virus, and before that wild wolves-bears ect.

Certain bacteria are becoming immune to antibiotics, but science has developed many, many, drugs against even these. The time it takes science to do so, seems to be rapidly decreasing.

Normally when you have a large number of animals herding together you have bodily waste which provides an ideal medium for killer bacteria like cholera to thrive. This was still true till about the 18th century, when they realized that building towns and cities with massive multi-mile long drainage systems, then water treatment facilities would save millions of lives.

And right now we have virus like SARS which tried to spread, but in places like Hong-Kong they simply brought police out with thermal imaging in order to detect those with a temperature.
www.futurepundit.com...

In the past when a pandemic struck, people simply prayed to God without having any idea where it would spread next. But now we have computer modelling www.smartplanet.com...
We even have Google Flue trends: www.google.org...

So whilst a pandemic may still kill tens of thousands, it seems unlikely to reach millions in anywhere other than the most technologically-socially backward third world countries.

reply to post by Liberal1984


Interesting.

It took us centuries to evolve away from the sail to steam power. But, that began a rapid change.
It took us only (roughly) one century to outgrow the steam engine. We evolved from coal to oil.
We went from being a horse-driven society to a motor-driven one in less than three decades.
We went from the first powered flight in 1903 to landing on the moon just 66 years later.
Fixed wing prop planes were replaced by jet engines in a period of about 50 years.

So, how much longer will we be held captive in this vaseline jar before we are allowed to evolve again?

As important a science is I believe it does not have the answer to over population and all the related issues that come from that.

The cause is greed. If the 1% relented in trying to own everything leaving the rest of us to fight over the scraps the world would be completely different.

Educated people with good health care, housing do not have big families. People that have a future do not fight wars in an attempt to get one because they have too much to lose and won’t fight wars for the greed and power of a few.

If we knew we all worked for a better future for all and not just a better future for a few we would likely work together and build a bright and sustainable world

We have the tools to do this now but greed, ignorance and poverty as a result of the greed a few elite blocks any attempts to change that.

Until the majority stop fighting each other and let the pupet masters know we can see the strings they are pulling this world will remain as it is.

Education and unity is the only saviour for our world. We are not as intelligent as we think, no where near.

colin42 As important a science is I believe it does not have the answer to over population and all the related issues that come from that.

Why is that? Without an explanation this sounds like a desperate ideological assertion, to justify a political philosophy…

The cause is greed. If the 1% relented in trying to own everything leaving the rest of us to fight over the scraps the world would be completely different.

Two things…
1. You have more hope of squeezing water out of stone, than expecting human nature to change. There has always been the 1%, the 1% have always had more than everybody else even others starve. This is as true in North Korea today, as it was in Soviet Russia. In England even large trade unionists are earning hundreds of thousands a year, and the same could not be said of the leaders of Occupy (many are either spies for central government, private interests, or foreign nations with separate grievances against one’s own).
2. I’m not sure how much as a percentage of world pollution the 1% cause, but I doubt it’s much more than say 10% of the population. In other words the difference to be had is limited.

Educated people with good health care, housing do not have big families.

That’s true. They also consume dozens of times more resources than malnourished people, living in mud huts made of sticks. Here only science e.g. through better recycling technology that can actually turn trash into money, has the answer. www.youtube.com...
For example we all go through x number of computers, batteries, ect in our lifetime. But if they are better recycled then the same materials can serve x number of other people (hence giving exactly the same living standards, to many more people worldwide).

People that have a future do not fight wars in an attempt to get one because they have too much to lose and won’t fight wars for the greed and power of a few.

That’s not true. America didn’t fight e.g. Saddam because the American people were short of living standards in 2003, but because the propaganda masters lied to them about him…
1. Being a threat
2. Having WMD’s
3. Grossly exaggerating the stuff he had done wrong against his own people, in a wholly one-sided manner.

Worst of all it does appear that for the future (and despite the internet’s knowledge) the power of propaganda is going to increase, as far as people are better entertained through TV and videogames, and an entertained population can be a much less empathetic one.
For example in the 1970’s people were outraged to see Vietnam pictures of children scorched by U.S napalm. But today’s we’ve napalmed whole villages with Napalm on Call of Duty videogame, or we’ve seen the insides of the human body through a thousand movies & vampire drama’s. Consequently when we see it for real we still know consciously it’s bad, but emotionally-subconsciously we are less outraged.

It’s interesting that when Julia Cesar became the first proper dictator of Rome, he dramatically increased the number of Gladiator fights in Roman Stadiums throughout Rome.
I also think that if living standards fall people will become even more indifferent to foreign policy wrongs. In that way at least (even if mostly by accident) perhaps the current lack in R&D serves a “higher” purpose?

reply to post by Liberal1984

Why is that? Without an explanation this sounds like a desperate ideological assertion, to justify a political philosophy…

How many pages of examples do you want? GM foods peddled as the answer to world hunger. I don’t see any effect so far. Computers pretty useless in a country where the majority of its country cannot read and do not have electricity. High speed trains have little impact on communities whose main form of travel is ox and cart.

Organ transplants yet many go blind as they cannot even get 20 minute cataract operation, drink filthy water and have no sanitary systems at all.

If you think what I wrote is political philosophy then I suggest you expand your horizons. Of course it is a political issue; everything in life is but philosophy..... Please

1. You have more hope of squeezing water out of stone, than expecting human nature to change.

You are correct. That is why I put education as the number one essential.

2. I’m not sure how much as a percentage of world pollution the 1% cause, but I doubt it’s much more than say 10% of the population. In other words the difference to be had is limited.

Really? Then the oil spill in the gulf due to risk taking of a few for profit is not an example? The deaths of thousands in Bopal (8000 in three days) and still kills today 30 years later with the plant still polluting. Science has not helped here has it.

The third world is kept as the third world to protect cheap resources and high profits. Are you telling me that the 1% is not directly to blame?

That’s true. They also consume dozens of times more resources than malnourished people, living in mud huts made of sticks.

The malnourished burn wood to cook and for warmth, destroying their environment because they have no choice and cannot get an education to give them a choice

Here only science e.g. through better recycling technology that can actually turn trash into money, has the answer. www.youtube.com...

I said science is important. Science will help us turn things around but it is not the solution, it is part of the solution and you need an education to put it to use

That’s not true. America didn’t fight e.g. Saddam because the American people were short of living standards in 2003, but because the propaganda masters lied to them about him…

And you think a war engineered to get control of resources for a few helps your stance how?

Americas promise to bomb Iraq back to the stone age was the only promise they kept. Now tell me who has profited from that and who has paid for it?

colin42 How many pages of examples do you want? GM foods peddled as the answer to world hunger. I don’t see any effect so far.

Well that’s just lying-marketing. People have always lied to promote their products-services.

Computers pretty useless in a country where the majority of its country cannot read and do not have electricity.

But the computer still works the same way as it would here, and actually has even more demand over there, it’s just they need to focus on other areas of science Britain did in the 50’s, like getting a National Electricity Grid first.

The fact the high end of technology does not follow until you have got the low end sorted out, surely provides little logic to argue neither the high or low end of technology is of any use?

Really? Then the oil spill in the gulf due to risk taking of a few for profit is not an example? The deaths of thousands in Bopal (8000 in three days) and still kills today 30 years later with the plant still polluting. Science has not helped here has it.

Pretty much everything in this world does both good and bad and science is no exception. However without science most of the world’s population would never have been born. Would that have been progress?
250 years ago it Thomas Malthus famously predicted starvation would become inevitable now the world had exceeded 1 billion blogs.reuters.com...
Every overpopulation doomsayer since him has been wrong, but it’s only because of progress in science.

The third world is kept as the third world to protect cheap resources and high profits. Are you telling me that the 1% is not directly to blame?

As said we have 1% in whatever human society, be them tribal, capitalist or communist. All these 1%’s tend to consist of (mostly) ruthless and immoral people, and in this way have proven to be a stubbornly permanent feature of the human society –undoubtedly predating writing.

However the 1% will and are viewing the third world as an investment dream –economic opportunity, and one need only look at China-India to see that. But only science (through encouraging efficiency, and making recycling profitable) could liberate all the world’s poor, and make that liberation an opportunity for all the worlds rich.

The malnourished burn wood to cook and for warmth, destroying their environment because they have no choice and cannot get an education to give them a choice

Nearly everywhere that is poor lacks a Western culture. I.e. that tend to be countries that believe woman should not work, homosexuals should be killed, tribal-religious feuds should be sustained, religion must be compulsory, conversion should be met with the death penalty, bribery-gifts to tribal elders is a way of life.

So I don’t blame our 1% for this, but e.g. Africa’s and Afghanistan’s 1% (who as it happens tend to actually be much poorer than our bottom 10%!!!) and I blame culture, particularly the politically correct assertion that all cultures are equal when obviously a culture-society that’s religiously & socially intolerant is extremely inferior to our own (both economically and in life expectancy) almost in direct proportion to it’s own intolerance and even outright hostility to those who are educated (particularly woman -51% of ones population!!!)

I said science is important. Science will help us turn things around but it is not the solution, it is part of the solution and you need an education to put it to use

Well good luck educating them.
So far Western culture-technology comes first, then education follows. It was the same in Britain 200 years ago during the industrial revolution, just as it’s equally true in Africa today. But education before there’s many places for educated people only encourages “a brain drain” on developing countries as their most educated flee towards America-Europe-China –in short anywhere that’s more Western than home, that will have them.

And you think a war engineered to get control of resources for a few helps your stance how?

Because I don’t moan about ideology or morality. I make a much more powerful argument, by arguing what I believe to the case which is the wars in Iraq-Afghanistan were a mistake both for the 1% and the man on the street.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. www.reuters.com...

Others put the bill closer to 6 trillion…

Altogether, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost the U.S. between $4 trillion and $6 trillion, more than half of which would be due to the fighting in Iraq, said Neta Crawford, a political science professor at Brown University.

Why This Was Folly (for all)…
Ultimately Iraq is producing less oil than had we simply lifted sanctions against Iraq. At the same time it’s a much harder country to invest in because it’s in social chaos, and it’s producing less money because the infrastructure is in a mess.
And in Afghanistan’s case whilst it is clear the Taliban needed to be taken out, we could have ended the war within a year had we not insisted on inserting a Western Style democracy, and instead settled with what the people of Afghanistan wanted which was a government coalition by the Northern Alliance.

Nothing extra is being produced thanks to 6 trillion. Sure munitions have been made, but they never create money like a loan for a new factory does. And what would have made even more money than tax cuts (in the medium term at least) would have been to spend a trillion on e.g. developing cheap solar, another trillion on ocean floor mining, and to put the rest down as debt not borrowed.