so the earth is F***ed aparently..

hermes

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Nothing new here; but I have to admire his "scientific approach". If environmental issues don't get to us, overpopulation will... and it won't be pretty.

If someone believes a return to the dark ages is not a possibility, they should check their history... Specifically, the dark ages part.
 

Aurora Firestorm

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Even if humanity does invoke climate change, eventually life will evolve to suit it. We've had mass extinctions before; really, unless we truly and horribly dick it up beyond our current predictions, life will go on fairly similarly to before. We'll have to adjust where and how we grow food, but when hydroponics is becoming a thing and power plants are hooking their CO2 up to greenhouses to grow plants at N times the speed, we won't need to care that much about climate for agriculture in developed countries soon. The Third World countries will get hit the hardest, unfortunately.

Still, it is very sad to see valuable species die...but in the end, the planet itself doesn't care that much about what specific species are alive on it. Earth and anything dependent on technology will go on no matter what, and really, it would suck if many species went extinct, but I don't think it will affect us all that much. So long as we can artificially produce environments that grow food well, we're set.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
18,863
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Capitano Segnaposto said:
Don't you see Vault?! This is the beginning of a Bond Villian or Super-Hero Villian! It is only a matter of time before he goes on a widespread attack on humanity, only to be stopped by a single man/woman. I shall dub this villian as "Chrono-Tard". He shall strike fear into the hearts of few, and be laughed at by the large populous!

LONG LIVE CHRONO-TARD!
.....he must be stopped

[b/]TO THE BAT-MOBILE!![/b]
[img/]http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs/323910_o.gif[/img]
 

ClockworkPenguin

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Mar 29, 2012
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Going back to a pre-industrial lifestyle is not sustainable at all. It was powered by burning wood, and through animal power. There is not enough suitable land per person to grow enough to feed people and grow enough plant matter for heating and fuel (for animals). In the middle ages population density was much less, and it still wasn't sustainable then, hence Europe's forests being decimated. Also, wood burning is worse than oil burning in terms of CO2 and particulates.

That said, whilst I imagine humanity will certainly survive, the next couple of centuries could be very bumpy, especially when the oil runs out, and it is by no means certain that western culture will survive. There is no political or economic will to solve the problems, so the argument that we are f*cked isn't necessarily a stupid one. But primitivism is in no way one of the solutions. It just doesn't work.
 

razer17

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TizzytheTormentor said:
TopazFusion said:
TizzytheTormentor said:
OT: Seriously, people make these predictions all the time, once the 21st December doomsday thing passes, they will move onto the next date (Most likely 2016)
Except that's not what the article is about.
Not once is December 21 mentioned in it.

The article's about climate-change.
I know, still another doomsday theory.

Its just that these kind of news headlines are almost always bogus! I don't think the earth is f-ed and that while he may have some good points, the damage isn't going to be so bad as to F up the planet.
Not exactly true. If carbon emissions keep climbing at the rate they are, the earths temperature may rise to levels that will have a signicant impact on then world.

Before the end of the century it could get to a point where large parts of Africa, China, Australia, India, Brazil and parts of the USA will basically become uninhabitable during certain parts of the year because it would get so hot and humid it would cause mass heat exhaustion and kill large amounts of people. Events like Hurricane Sandy would increase due to the unpredictable weather. Our food production will drop significantly, especially in parts of the world that are already suffering large amounts of starvation.

Not that I agree with this dudes theory. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the earth (or more accurately the things living on it) could be in a lot of trouble, but it's not irreversible. We just need to work on lowering carbon emissions more quickly. This isn't some doomsday theory like the Mayan calender thing. This is based on real, scientific data and observations etc. Only thing is, is that switching back to a dark ages style of living just isn't realistic.
 

Brainwreck

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The Earth IS fucked. The Heat Death of the Universe will unmake all atomic and subatomic bonds, and matter will cease to be.

On a more relevant note:
Yeah, we kind of fucked the environment up. Pretty sure it's going to be a less pleasant place to live in the not-far-enough future even in human measurements. But this guy is dumb as a brick and probably isn't worth taking seriously.
 

DrOswald

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MammothBlade said:
General Twinkletoes said:
5ilver said:
People were happier, less stressed and better fed a few thousand years ago. I see nothing wrong with wanting to go back.
Have you ever been in a history class? It was nothing like that. Even if you were the richest and most powerful people in a city, your life would still suck compared to most people in the first world today.
Life was horrible. You could get executed because of your race, slavery was everywhere, women weren't allowed to do anything and you had to do gruelling manual labour for most of the day, every day, for terrible pay. There was shit everywhere and most people would never bathe.
Ehh, people coped with their lot in life. Not so much those treated as slaves or outsiders, but most people weren't severely depressed on the brink of suicide because of their situation. They didn't think in the same way, and the same paradigms we do now. We think it's terrible because of the things we are used to, and what we believe and understand now. What people believe is important. So, don't pity people in the past. That's not how contemporary humans live, it's not how we should live according to what we know now, but that's how people in the past lived. And they mostly adapted to it, accepted it as their reality.
So, basically, your position is that even though people had much more miserable and stressful lives the fact that they didn't realize just how shitty everything was meant they were happier and less stressed than us? I seriously doubt your conclusion. Just because most people managed not to kill themselves out of despair does not mean that the general population was exceedingly happy and content with life.

Also, people were not better fed. You are so completely wrong about this that I cannot find the words to encompass your ignorance on the subject.
 

Zen Toombs

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Vault101 said:
Hey Vault, how're you?

OT: First off, ground rules. Global Climate Change is a scientific fact. There are some questions about the exact causes (natural shifts, humanity, etc etc) and effects (how horrifyingly bad it will be), the only scientists who disagree that climate change is happening are those who ignore the data and are being paid by oil companies and the Koch brothers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Institute].

If climate change is partially based upon human action (see below) AND we can do something to slow down or "stop" the runaway climate change, then something simmilar to what Mr. Crazypants discussed is likely the only response if we wish to keep humanity alive for more than a few generations. This is because most scientists agree that environmentally, things have gotten way out of wack.

In addition, modern life is maintained by an insane number of chemicals with limited quantities. There is a point where oil will run out/be prohibitively expensive for use in daily products, for example.

We can either take the short view or the long view. If we take the short view, most of the major repercussions would hit humanity after we are dead, but the future generations are screwed. If we take the long view, we have to change how we do things and that will be unpleasant, but humanity as a whole will profit.



Translation: CO[sub]2[/sub] levels have varied wildly over the past 400,000 years, but they always followed roughly the same pattern. However, roughly at a peak in the normal pattern, the industrial revolution began. At this point instead of the pattern of CO[sub]2[/sub] levels continuing as it had for hundreds of thousands of years, the CO[sub]2[/sub] levels skyrocketed.

Note that this is not the full scientific explanation for humanity's involvement in climate change, but merely an illustration.

Also, the colored lines refer to specific things not labeled in the image.
[Source] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere]
 

Thyunda

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Not G. Ivingname said:
Yes, let's go back to the good old days, before all the horrid technology, where 20 miles was a hard days trip, you never left your home town, filth and rats where everywhere, surgery was done with hacksaws, all but the nobility was eternally poor, you had to work 365 days a year to make sure the crops didn't go bad, and the most stimulating form of entertainment was getting into a bar fight.

Truly, this is the great world humans need to regain!
...this just sounds like Stoke-on-Trent to me.
 

AnarchistFish

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These are effectively just Malthusian ideas. He's depicted them in a pretty extreme way but the concept itself isn't anything new.

I used to wonder if a primitive society would in fact be a better solution than our present one. Decided that no, but if you take a romanticist viewpoint there are a lot of things we could take extract from those ideals for our own benefit because our society is far from perfect in its extreme consumerism.
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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Aug 30, 2011
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Pre-technology? Please, nobody wants to die at 40 and never access the internet. You know what my, better solution is? Solar panels. Fuckloads of solar panels. Space-based solar panels. Solar panels in the middle of deserts. Solar panels on houses. Coat the Moon in solar panels so you can't look at it directly either. But there is no damn need to get rid of my vidyo games.
 

DudeistBelieve

TellEmSteveDave.com
Sep 9, 2010
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Luftwaffles said:
earth will do fine. Its us humans that are fucked.
Nonsense, we're like cockroaches. So long as the planet can sustain life at all there will always be some human beings. We're adaptable like that, when backed into a corner we find a way.
 

MammothBlade

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Oct 12, 2011
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DrOswald said:
MammothBlade said:
General Twinkletoes said:
5ilver said:
People were happier, less stressed and better fed a few thousand years ago. I see nothing wrong with wanting to go back.
Have you ever been in a history class? It was nothing like that. Even if you were the richest and most powerful people in a city, your life would still suck compared to most people in the first world today.
Life was horrible. You could get executed because of your race, slavery was everywhere, women weren't allowed to do anything and you had to do gruelling manual labour for most of the day, every day, for terrible pay. There was shit everywhere and most people would never bathe.
Ehh, people coped with their lot in life. Not so much those treated as slaves or outsiders, but most people weren't severely depressed on the brink of suicide because of their situation. They didn't think in the same way, and the same paradigms we do now. We think it's terrible because of the things we are used to, and what we believe and understand now. What people believe is important. So, don't pity people in the past. That's not how contemporary humans live, it's not how we should live according to what we know now, but that's how people in the past lived. And they mostly adapted to it, accepted it as their reality.
So, basically, your position is that even though people had much more miserable and stressful lives the fact that they didn't realize just how shitty everything was meant they were happier and less stressed than us? I seriously doubt your conclusion. Just because most people managed not to kill themselves out of despair does not mean that the general population was exceedingly happy and content with life.

Also, people were not better fed. You are so completely wrong about this that I cannot find the words to encompass your ignorance on the subject.
No, don't take what I said the wrong way. Relative to our perspective and standards, of course they lived shitty lives. But relative to their own standards and perspective, that was how they lived. They had to cope with it somehow. I do not believe they were any less stressed or happier. Alas, no-one can send a survey back in time and ask people in the eighteenth century about their levels of perceived happiness, nor would it prove anything.

Can we say people are any happier now? Better educated, better fed, better life expectancy and health, but maybe the modern first world lifestyle gives more people time for melancholic reflection. That's not a bad thing, since the human consciousness is expanded. Yet more educated contemporary humans are not necessarily happier - they can see the suffering of others and the despair in the wider world more readily. They can comprehend a wide range of possibilities which were previously the preserve of a small elite, which their forebears by and large did not realise at all possible. Some of this insight can be very upsetting indeed.

Then you have well-educated people in menial or mediocre jobs. Someone is likely to become depressed if they feel that their job prospects are below their intellectual abilities. There are so many ways in which human life differs now to 200 years ago, and they're not just material.

Also, humans in the pre-internet, pre-automobile era had a greater sense of community, which may have helped alleviate some of the pain. People were suffering, but they had support networks. Now we live in a mostly atomised society, in which many do not know their neighbours, nor do they care to know. And that level of social compartmentisation is increasing.

It's not black and white. Some things can still be learnt from the past, that have otherwise been forgotten in the 21st century.
 

McMullen

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5ilver said:
People were happier, less stressed and better fed a few thousand years ago. I see nothing wrong with wanting to go back.
Where does this idea come from? Better fed? Did you know that until recently fat people were considered more attractive than thin people? The reason most commonly suggested is that it was only the successful, better-off ones who could get fat.

Less stressed? Happier? Life was short, dirty, dangerous, and often unpleasant. If wildlife didn't kill you, your neighbors might. If that didn't happen, you might get sold into slavery. Even if you weren't a slave, odds were still good that you were a peasant or serf. Winters, for those in the mid latitudes, meant death by cold or starvation unless they spent a significant chunk of the year simply storing and preparing fuel and meat. There's also disease, parasites, and enough wars during your 30-year life expectancy to lose track of.

Having free time, the possibility of retirement, and not being in direct fear of our lives most of the time are recent developments, made possible by technology. The picture of man's primitive state as wild and carefree is a myth.
 

lacktheknack

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If we have to go back to pre-tech in order to save the planet's environment, then what's the point? Why not go down in a blaze of technological awesome? It's not like the rest of the universe cares.

I've never seen the appeal in saving the environment at our grand expense. I mean, if we all died off tomorrow, then yeah, the environment would be saved, but no one would be there to give care.
 

I-Protest-I

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We've had people since we could first speak saying how the world will end, let the scientists do their thing and when the best and brightest agree to it we can agree to it.
 

lacktheknack

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5ilver said:
People were happier, less stressed and better fed a few thousand years ago. I see nothing wrong with wanting to go back.
No.

What?

Where'd you get that idea?

Did you even think about that idea for more than three seconds?

(No. No you didn't.)