Anybody think the world would be better of without people?

[Allie]

Do you think the Human race is really worth saving Gary?

Personally I think not.. Except us environmentally friendly bushcrafters of course
But then again saying that I just got a car for my birthday, so maybe I'm not worth saving either

 

[Ogri the trog]

Maybe when fuel is priced so high that only the rich and famous can survive, we will get that reduction in population that could save the planet from turning into total poison.

Inwhich case I don't think they would stat either rich or famous for very long. Bands of thieving beggars wanting to steal their vitals, and the lack of any medium through which to see the "celeb", would soon drag everybody into a similar position - though organised crime would likely soar in the early days/weeks/months of any worldwide disaster.

Ogri the trog

 

[Voivode]

Reassuring that even our nuclear foul ups don't mess Gaea about too much.

If we can just sort out our petrochemical addiction we might just make it.

I've seen the program, and read the book it's based on 'World Without Us'; they're both very good. Encouraging in that nature will reclaim so very much in a short time span, disconcerting to think that it could take thousands of years for bacteria to start digesting plastics and finally begin removing them from the oceans, where they kill all variety of creatures.

The bottom line is that life goes on, one way or another. I think mankind will survive the oil age, even though we'll likely go kicking and screaming, clutching our SUVs and suburban lifestyles all the way. Predicting the future is always a fool's game, but I think we'll be living a life that looks far more like the turn of the 20th century before my children are gone.

 

[firecrest]

I keep telling everybody - Birdflu!!

Its the answer to all our woes!

 

[Wallenstein]

Humans are nothing if not resourceful... as soon as it looks like the oil is set to run out, we'll ramp up the production of alternative technologies (solar, wind, tide, biofuel etc).

There will be a few tough decades of adjustment, but gradually increased need and greater economies of scale will mean we'll shift our lifestyles away from oil.

At the moment there's no immediate need - but the technology is here, it just needs scaling up.

 

[Wayland]

Do you think the Human race is really worth saving Gary? We've made a right mess of a whole host of things on this planet and continue to do so every day. Maybe when fuel is priced so high that only the rich and famous can survive, we will get that reduction in population that could save the planet from turning into total poison.

As has been said we are just one species among many. Not even the dominant genus either, Insects out number and out weigh us by quite some degree.

While humanity does have a talent for foul ups, that is only because we have dared to do extraordinary things.

I'm no physicist, but I was intrigued to learn some time ago, that certain particles only appear to move when they are observed to do so.

Is it just possible that we are here just to experience the universe?

I don't think the human race is run just yet.

 

[Allie]

I'm no physicist, but I was intrigued to learn some time ago, that certain particles only appear to move when they are observed to do so.

Sounds like dodgy quantum physics to me
Like when I was told it is *possible* that we can randomly teleport somewhere.. Or some particle from a table can randomly teleport somewhere else.. It's just not very likely

 

[Wayland]

" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

 

[gregorach]

Yeah, it's measurement, not observation, that collapses a wave function. Whether a conscious entity is involved at any stage is irrelevant. It's a very common misconception, widely promulgated by charlatans like Deepak Chopra.

 

[Sheng_ji]

Wallenstein - There is a book called the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond which talks about hunter gatherer societies. They pretty much had the lifespan we have today , were largely disease free and on average needed to work only 3 hours a day. Im not sure where you get the figure of 50% mortality rate, thats certainly not across the board. Even in Papua New Guinea in deep jungle its 33%, Im not sure where it is higher.
Where humans life expectancy plumeted is the point in history where we introduced farming. A farming community has to work harder and longer and the switch to largely carbohydrate based food stuffs has not been good for our health. However the advantages of farming means that many many more people can live in one area whereas hunter gatherers have a population cap, wherein food in the area is too depleted and some, or all , of the group must disperse. Our brains are geared to remember around 150 faces, and h/g people rarely live in bands bigger than this. Lack of large scale intermingling keeps diseases at bay at well. But H/G people cannot compete against farming groups owing to the farmers larger numbers, gradually farming spread to take over the planet, despite their shorter life spans and preveilance of disease. (infact they probably bred new diseases which other peoples didnt have immunity to)
There is no way we can return to hunter gathering lives because our numbers are now many times to great, we can only be sustained by intensive farming of the land and seas.

I'm sorry firecrest, but this is absolutely wrong. The primary evidence demonstrates quite clearly the simple fact the yes, our average lifespan would take us to 60 years old if we survived to 5 years old, however the horrendus infant mortality reduced the average lifespan to 30. Infant mortality did indeed run in the region of 50%, we know this from the finds of bodies and what they died from and at what age - actually pretty horrendus if you really get into it!

The primary evidence also shows, during the bronze age, and the spread of farming, communities of around 150 families formed and people started to be able to build megalithic structures and hillforts - massive feats of engineering, which would not have been possible to feed and support these people during hunter gatherer times, One man could support a family - a family could support a village - yes, that one man may have to work hard, but the five other people free to develop skills to aid life mean the average farm community work load would be much less - I also dispute the fact that a hunter gather only needs to put in three hours work a day to survive - with hunts lasting several days and constantly having to search for resources, maintain tools and equipment, the level of fitness they would have had to maintain to beable to pull their weight - no way three hours!!!

Also I would like to examine the evidence of hunter gathers hunting patterns: They would burn large patches of woodland in order to create prime grazing ground, and prime hunting ground. There is much evidence which shows these hunters were so effective, they outcompeted the neanderthals, who followed massive herd migrations across europe, and wiped them out just like the grey squirrel would eventually wipe out the reds if we didn't intervene. They would kill many more animals than they needed and leave much to waste. These are not enlightened "Ray-Mearsesk" Hunter Gathers living rosy lives singing round the fire in tune with nature, they were mercenary sophisticated killers, who slaughtered, laid waste to the countryside, changing the face of it forever, wasteful of natural resources and not particularly pleasent to each other either.

For secondary reports of these claims, I refer you to:

Richard Muir, Portraits of the Past: The British Landscape through the Ages which examines and contrasts life at Star Carr, a mesolithic hunter gather site compared to Neolithic life in places like Avebury, where a gang of 100 builders were fully supported to allow them to build the monument on windmill hill, a feat that would have taken them six months full time! Impossible without farming.

Philip Payton: Probably the most respected pre roman historian in the South West and his book Cornwall, A history which describes the swelling of the population on Bodmin Moor as farming took over and discusses the primary evidence as to how their lives improved as they settled large towns - which gave them the spare time and the quality of life to perfect the arts and new technologies.

Put quite simply, Mesolithic hunter gatherer life was tough, short and brutal, rife with disease and a society in which the weak died. In the neolithic, as farming arrived, the quality of life improved as many could now provide for their families with significantly less effort and able to stockpile for hard times. Culture flourished and the weak found their niche now they didn't have to struggle to survive.

Unfortunately, life was probably still as brutal as far as human on human violance was concerned, looking at the number of arrowheads found around Caen Brae would testiment too....

 

[firecrest]

Hi Sheng Ji

Ive got to get to work in a minute so I can't make a detailed post, but Ill just post a couple of quick points.

You're using mathematical standards to apply to peoples lives and it cannot work that way. I don't dispute infant mortality was high, I dispute it was 50% seems as this rate is still not generally seen amongst the poorest in the modern world, even those that are without medicine. (Ill concede this if I find statistics to the contrary) But yes , once everybody is past the first years of childhood, surviving seems to be a bit easier , thus beyond that many, if not most, lived to around 60. The reason mathematics fails here is because you perform a calculation to lower the average age by introducing the infant mortality rate, which takes down the mean of the available data and this takes the average lifespan down to 30. But this does not have bearing on real life as it gives the impression people only lived to be 30!

 

[BorderReiver]

Could it be that Mother Earth herself thinks there are too many humans around at the moment?
There seems to be an awful lot of high death toll natural disasters happening recently.

"Mother Earth" doesn't give a toss about anything. What's happening on the planet surface is irrelevant to a non sentient system.

We are part of the dynamic and when we disturb it too much it will automatically cut us down to re-establish the equilibrium. No problem.

Us humans take ourselves far too seriously IMO.

 

[Wallenstein]

Sounds like dodgy quantum physics to me
Like when I was told it is *possible* that we can randomly teleport somewhere.. Or some particle from a table can randomly teleport somewhere else.. It's just not very likely

Dunno Allie... my car keys frequently manage to teleport themselves from wherever I left them to some random location (normally on top of the fridge).

 

[sandbender]

Dunno Allie... my car keys frequently manage to teleport themselves from wherever I left them to some random location (normally on top of the fridge).

It's true!

And what about the spontaneous creation of matter? usually in the form of paperclips at the backs of drawers!

 

[andy_e]

Us humans take ourselves far too seriously IMO.

Hear, hear - now where's me leprechaun suit and me lucky charms.

 

[sandbender]

Perhaps some interesting reading for some of the folks posting on this thread...

An article from the New Yorker discusses the origins of the nation state, human nature and the desire for vengence.

The greater part of the article concerns the story of an American who befriends a Papua New Guinean whose clan are involved in a prolonged war with a neighboring clan.

The logistics, time and effort involved in attempting to bring about the death of a specific individual in neighboring tribe are surprisingly complex.

(However the author does suggest that the 'Nation State' didn't really exist out-with the Mediterranean basin and the middle east before the 1500's, I suspect that on their various travels, many from this forum will have seen plenty of evidence of earlier 'Nation States' existing elsewhere in the world before this then).





http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_diamond?currentPage=all