pacman

it all starts with the swine flu vaccinations

Qui-Bong Jinn

I think zombies will take over the world, but seriously why are we talking about something 7.5 billion years away?

The Rev

Earth sucks.



The Rev

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stateofkane

To think humans have any chance of being around "in a few billion years" let alone a million years is almost pitiful, try a few thousand at best, shortbus.

Spanky, wrong on all accounts. All the satellites we have on Mars were sent out like 30 years ago, hence the old fashioned picture technology. Compare the pics of the moon to Mars. Have we learned anything?

Quantum physics is mostly speculation. I don't believe in most of the hypothesis.

verklingen

^ quantum physics is hard reality based on observation. no one wanted to have quantum physics, it's the result of inference on the results of experimentation. it helps explain the phenomena around us

and why do we have to be headed toward cataclysm? the explosion in new technology is already here! it can only get better. stephen hawking, as much as i respect him, is an idiot for thinking of humanity in terms similar of the last few centuries. the pace of innovation is hundreds if not thousands of times higher now than our past 300 years. the next will likely be the same. we are on the road to rediscovering the cosmos, mark my words

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“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

cantSEEme

^ word, verk. i like to be optimistic about the distant future, too.


sok's glass is just constantly half empty. it would suck feeling/being that negative and shitty all the time.

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SageTree

In a positive way, every second is the death of billions of phenomena happening, which means there is always a new chance for change and goodness to occur.

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Sir-Ex

lol verk, you toot your horn of science and technology (I love science and technology) but look at what technology has actually done to the planet in real terms. It's enabled us to expand far more rapidly than we should've and we never implemented any controls for ourselves, so now the only check and balance is the sheer physicality itself; the fundamental requirements for our ecosystem to function as it is are being weakened and potentially destroyed. You are the human in his head screaming praise for his awesome mind yet witless of the very ground he stands on.

I'm not a pessimist either, I'm very much the optimist. But I can't ignore what's staring us in the face..




And sok wtf are you talking about 30 years? It would not take even take a year to get there.

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Smile

Ditch the cigs!!!!!!

Sir-Ex

Mariner 9 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


here if you don't believe me. One of (maybe the 1st?) probes sent to mars was sent in 1971 and arrived in that same year.

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Ditch the cigs!!!!!!

verklingen

i agree wholeheartedly. technology got us into this mess and technology will get us out. clean, renewable energy will be developed and implemented because to do otherwise is collective suicide. japan has plans in place for a satellite solar power generator, ireland put on a multi-million dollar contest to see who could harness the immense power of tides, communities in africa and elsewhere are setting up wind and solar farms to give those developing regions electricity. we're recycling our waste more than ever and turning it into all kinds of things from bridges to firewood. the point is that our reckless industrial expansion is forcing us to innovate and realize our vast technological potential. it'll see us through, no doubt in my mind

what's staring us in the face is the need to do away with our outdated conventions and create a technological future that works with and is supported by our environment. it's either that or we'll all die, and even whoever keeps the wraps on alternative energy sources or whatever else won't want that. . . we all have a very animalistic will to survive. so much so that i can't envision any doomsday scenario created by our own devices ever being realized

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“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Sir-Ex

I agree with you. Um but what I'm envisioning isn't a doomsday scenario. I don't think we'll exterminate ourselves and all things on this planet, but we are headed toward some kind of.. purge. The number of people living on this earth living the way they do just won't be allowed to happen much longer. I think there will be conflict and lots of death in the not too distant future, after which we'll (as a species) hopefully see the rise of a new way of doing things.

But humans are generally like that, we don't really learn until it hurts.

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Ditch the cigs!!!!!!

verklingen

lots of people dying. . . sounds pretty doomsday to me!

but i don't see even that happening. we can actually support many more people than we have today. the problem is the amount of meat we eat, which takes away land for both the animals and food grwn to feed the animals. vertical farming and other prospects are more than enough to feed our population today and provide for future growth. i don't see any imminent conflict whatsoever. can you point some out to me?

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“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Sir-Ex

FUCK FYUCJK FYCJ!!


I just wrote like 10 gucking PARAGRAHPS AND I HIT A FUCING LINK BYACCIDENT HOLY FUCK IM ANGRY

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Ditch the cigs!!!!!!

Sir-Ex

FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!


gimme some time I gotta write it all out again AGH

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verklingen

aw man have i ever been there. . .

my bad

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“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

José

yeah i heard this theory that human civilization is nearly impossible to be sustainable. it's just impossible. it makes sense if you really think about it, that's why it's going to take some serious shit like some alien technology to pry humans from their dependency on oil.

verklingen

seems to me like we're being pried away already. remember all the hubbub about ethanol, i.e. reallocating our food resources to create fuel? how come we never hear about that anymore? because it was stupid. those in power have tried all kinds of gymnastics to keep us down as far as energy production goes, and the world just keeps progressing despite it all

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“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Waves

lol

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On this life that we call home
The years go fast and the days go so slow

Sir-Ex

Well you're talking about a huge shift in the food industry there. I'm not saying that can't or won't happen, but as it is right now the main source of food (a conscious decision of the industry itself) is grain. It is the primary commodity of the industry and it is used for everything. It is used to feed over 90% of all livestock, is used in nearly all packaged food (try going down the isles and see how many products with an ingredients list you actually find that have no corn-based ingredients in them, there won't be many. try doing the same thing but selecting products that have no grain based ingredients at all. there'll be almost none), and it is subsidized by the government so that it can happen as fast and large as possible in order to meet the demand put on it by both industry leaders and the consumers themselves. The number is around 85, eighty five freaking percent of all food produced in the whole world is grain.

So what we have is a global population that subsists almost entirely off grain. The problem is that grain takes a huge amount of land and water to produce; it is actually a relatively inefficient organism (in fact the species we've selected to mass produce aren't even very efficient as far as grains go, there are much better species to choose from). Since it's such an inefficient crop, needed to be replanted every year no less, our farming practices have had to focus on maximizing the output of each acre of land. Well this would seem like a good idea even at first glance, get the most out of what you got why not right? Again the problem is how it's done. We developed our farming methods and technology to a huge extent in order to get as much out of the ground as possible and during the 20th century grain output exploded at an exponential rate. I could say that it was the demand that forced the methods to change, but it is also true that the farming methods themselves made it possible for such a spike in demand. In any case, the two have grown hand in hand and now there are some er.. bad things that should be noticed.

bad thing 1: the methods we created are harmful to the land we're trying to grow from itself. I don't mean harmful in a 'oh no your big metal tillers are hurting the poor earth's skin' hippie bullshit way. I mean that each year the soil itself is depleted, nutrient levels are reduced, chemical balances are skewed and have to be recorrected artificially, and the amount of top soil itself is lessened. In short the way we farm is unsustainable because it slowly destroys the very land we need to grow. This isn't just a scientific theory of industrial farming, this is actually already happening in places all around the world where industrial farming has either been going on for a long time or where the soil was already deficient but was used anyway.

bad thing 2: the rate of expansion of grain output was tremendous only a few decades ago. However, in the last couple decades and especially in the last 5 years, grain expansion has been drastically reduced. The growing demand hasn't. The lack of expansion is due to several things. Firstly our technological methods have been quite refined and there hasn't been any major discovery that's made it possible to further boost our existing efficiency by any large margin. Secondly as mentioned in bad thing #1, the soil itself around the globe is becoming less able to produce due to our overproduction. Around 40% of the worlds agricultural soil is already nutrient deficient. The number is growing exponentially with demand. And thirdly it's because we're running out of space to grow.

This last point is something further exacerbated by the climate shifts already happening and which are expected to continue happening. We don't see it here as much (it is, however, evident), but in hotter places in the world, millions of hectares are undergoing drought and the dry areas are growing in size each year.

Every heard of the food reserve? It's a backlog of surplus grains the world kept aside in case of emergency food shortages. Well for the past 6 years humanity has eaten more food than it's produced and that food reserve has gone from a supply capable of feeding the planet for around 120 days to under 50. That number is going to be even lower by the end of next year. In less than a decade that food reserve wont exist.

The demand for food is expected to increase by another 50% by 2050.

The soil is getting worse.

The climate is getting worse.

There are getting more of us.


This is just one angle. I haven't even mentioned water.

Smile.

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Ditch the cigs!!!!!!

José

but what happens when we run out of oil? then we'd be fucked.

don't even say it's impossible, because we all know there's not an unlimited supply.