Collapse of Civilization is the Most Likely Outcome

[Bram]

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020 ... cientists/

* 9 of the 15 known Earth tipping elements that regulate the state of the planet had been activated, and there was now scientific support for declaring a state of planetary emergency.

* the three main challenges to humanity – climate change, the degradation of the biosphere and the growing inequalities between and among countries – were “just different facets of the same fundamental problem”.

* this problem was the “neoliberal economic system” that spread across the world through globalisation, underpinning “high production high consumption lifestyles” and a “religion built not around eternal life but around eternal growth”.

----

I'm reading a very good book suggested by Hebrew Hammer, "Give and Take." The premise of the book is that there are three main ways to behave in any interaction

You Take - Take as much as you can, maybe you give.
You Match - I give, you give. You take, I take.
You Give - You give as much as you can, maybe you receive.

The most successful, and the least successful people, in any field, were the givers.

Capitalism, the world's major economic model, is not survivable without expansion to other planets. We cannot afford to keep taking, yet that is what it promotes. I think the surest way out of this is fundamental economic change. I'm not sure what that will be, but it makes sense that it would be based on giving vs. taking.

Having less cars, smaller houses, less travel, less items, less kids.

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

The fact that we measure our society in terms of production and consumption is lunacy at an evangelical level. Infinite growth cannot happen on a finite rock. Period. This has been one of my main interests/fears for as long as I can remember. And anyone who dares question the religion of capitalism is branded a heretic and burned at the proverbial stake.
Unless we change metrics and look at our society not in terms of How Much, but in terms of how healthy, how sustainable, how happy, some other way to measure a society, we're fucked. All 7.5 billion of us. This combative late stage capitalism has a stranglehold on the planet, and until we realize that the natural world has a right to exist, it's game over.
You should read Peter Joseph's book "The New Human Rights Movement", and watch his youtube series "Culture in Decline".

[Fat Cat]

You could do all of that and it won't make the slightest difference, because of the demographics of the Third World. Until you depopulate Asia and Africa, you're just tilting at windmills. Consider the population distribution of the planet:



The only way to address the problems your article cites is by stopping the explosion of humanity in Africa and Asia. A few well meaning white nerds eating tofu and putting PV on their roof won't do shit. But as long as you're afraid of violence or being called a racist, just forget it, you're not serious.

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

Agreed 100% with FatCat. I'm willing to do my part, unless we bring the 3rd world to heel, this is hopeless. Not sure what the strategy might look like to get those areas to take population control seriously. But when people start starving or walking north by the hundreds of millions, shit is going to get real.

[Fat Cat]

You have to contain them, make the pressure unbearable, and allow no out-migration. Then, internal pressures can force societal change. Also, stop all funding, vaccinations, and food aid. I know, I know, I'm a monster but you said you wanted to save the planet!

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

I'm down with that. When rats breed themselves into starvation, there's only one possible outcome.
I like what the GA Guidstones have to say. Keep the population at 500 million and call it good. We could all have a quality of life almost unattainable by even the richest today with that little drain on our resources combined with our technology.

[Bram]

Fat Cat, based on your map don't Europe, India, and Southeast Asia have the highest population densities?

Dunno why racism or violence has to be the solution.

Mormons are predominantly white and are known for a massive birth rate. Googling Mormon birth rate brought up this data from 2012:

the average Mormon has 4.6 kids to the US average of 1.8

Education is directly linked to lower birth rates. With more education received the lower the birth rate. Fantasies of genocide at the billion plus level, unless caused by us destroying the Earth, so that we can continue our path....it seems like a red herring.

[Fat Cat]

Fat Cat, based on your map don't Europe, India, and Southeast Asia have the highest population densities?

That's a measure of density, but that's a measure of two co-variables: (i) population; and (ii) area. If you look at real numbers:

1. Asia.....................4,581,757,408
2. Africa...................1,216,130,000
3. Europe..................738,849,000
4. North America.........579,024,000
5. South America.........422,535,000
6. Oceania................38,304,000
7. Antarctica..............1,106

That means that 2 out of three humans lives in Asia or Africa, and the rate of growth is accelerating, especially in Africa.

Dunno why racism or violence has to be the solution.

You are a nice person that exhibits the attitudes your society wants you to, but you can't address a problem unless you are willing to define it honestly. What I think you don't realize is that your position is the implicitly racist one (not that I care): non-whites have no responsibility, no accountability, and whites must once again act as the self-sacrificing savior of our darker brothers and sisters.

Mormons are predominantly white and are known for a massive birth rate. Googling Mormon birth rate brought up this data from 2012:

the average Mormon has 4.6 kids to the US average of 1.8

That's nice. The highest fertility rates are found in countries located in Africa. Based on World Bank data from 2017, the highest fertility rate can be found in Niger, where the rate is 7.2. Somalia has the next highest fertility rate of 6.2. The Democratic Republic of Congo comes in third place with a fertility rate of 6.0. Other nations with high fertility rates include: Mali, Chad, Angola, Burundi, Uganda, Nigeria, Timor-Leste, Gambia, and Burkina Faso. All but one is in Africa, and the other is in Asia. There is not a single white majority country that is even at replacement level birth rates of 2.3.

Education is directly linked to lower birth rates. With more education received the lower the birth rate. Fantasies of genocide at the billion plus level, unless caused by us destroying the Earth, so that we can continue our path....it seems like a red herring.

I have not made any objection to education, but it is inadequate to the task at hand. Chinese are some of the better educated people on the planet, and yet there are 1.7 billion of them.

Fantasies of genocide at the billion plus level, unless caused by us destroying the Earth, so that we can continue our path....it seems like a red herring.

You're the only person on this thread who's brought up killing or genocide. We simply have to make it impossible for them to continue on how they are. Currently we are subsidizing their bad behavior, and if you care about the planet, then you should be amenable to that position.

[SubClaw]

You have to contain them, make the pressure unbearable, and allow no out-migration. Then, internal pressures can force societal change. Also, stop all funding, vaccinations, and food aid. I know, I know, I'm a monster but you said you wanted to save the planet!

Earth is perfectly fine and will continue to be so for several million years. It's humanity what is on the verge of a series of horrific events.

And the planet couldn't give two shits about it. We are just another species, a virus that grows and spreads at an unbelievable rate. And, after we've ruined our habitat, somehow we will manage to infect other planets.

The only viable solution, other than a war like the planet haven't seen before, is a very, very, very strict control over the Earth's population. This can be done imposing economic sanctions to those countries that won't enforce a single child policy (not only third world ones, every fucking country) and rewarding those others that comply.

In less than 150 years, humankind could be reduced to less than a billion souls, which would be much more reasonable and sustainable. A hundred million would be even better.

Obviously, this will never be done. But it would be one possible way to avert a global disaster without resorting to extreme violence.

To be frank, I don't give two shits either way. As long as the world stays more or less the same for the rest of my life I'm okay with it.

I don't really care what happens once I'm dead.

[motherjuggs&speed]

and until we realize that the natural world has a right to exist,

What does that mean? Spare the polemics -- what does this mean, exactly?

[motherjuggs&speed]

People are conflating capitalism with resource depletion. They aren't the same thing, and failure to understand that destroys credibility.

[nafod]

Women’s rights are actually important. Ready access to birth control and the workplace. Get them out of baby making mode.

[motherjuggs&speed]

How about taking away rights, such as the right to keep popping them out?

[SubClaw]

How about taking away rights, such as the right to keep popping them out?

There's no need to forcibly take away anything.

You can always reward and penalize via taxes: zero kids, less taxes. One kid, you pay what you've been paying. And for each sucesive kid, you will have to pay, say, 15% of your income.

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

People are conflating capitalism with resource depletion. They aren't the same thing, and failure to understand that destroys credibility.

I'll write up a good response to your question later, but as to this, I thing there's much more overlap between capitalism and resource depletion than you're admitting to.
Capitalism's only goal is to maximize return on investment, whether that's money, energy, intellect, whatever. And the best way to maximize return is to gather the resource as rapidly as possible with the least amount of outlay. Not save those last few trees for the next generation. Not stop pollution so people can breathe.
Look at the buffalo in the American west as a quick example. When the goal was to gather and sell as many buffalo skins as possible for the least effort, we basically shot every one we could all day every day until they were almost gone. The only thing that has historically stopped complete depletion of a resource is finding a better resource.
That's also why I'd like to see a moon shot effort to get next gen nuclear up and running, especially Thorium. If we want to get off of cheap fossil fuels, we need to have an even cheaper resource that provides even more energy per $.

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

Women’s rights are actually important. Ready access to birth control and the workplace. Get them out of baby making mode.

Now you're getting into sky daddy territory. There's vast swaths of the world where keeping women barefoot, pregnant, and under wraps is mandated from on high.

[nafod]

Women’s rights are actually important. Ready access to birth control and the workplace. Get them out of baby making mode.

Now you're getting into sky daddy territory. There's vast swaths of the world where keeping women barefoot, pregnant, and under wraps is mandated from on high.

Yup. Religion is an organism too. The ones that replicate the most win.

[Fat Cat]

You have to contain them, make the pressure unbearable, and allow no out-migration. Then, internal pressures can force societal change. Also, stop all funding, vaccinations, and food aid. I know, I know, I'm a monster but you said you wanted to save the planet!

Earth is perfectly fine and will continue to be so for several million years. It's humanity what is on the verge of a series of horrific events.

And the planet couldn't give two shits about it. We are just another species, a virus that grows and spreads at an unbelievable rate. And, after we've ruined our habitat, somehow we will manage to infect other planets.

The only viable solution, other than a war like the planet haven't seen before, is a very, very, very strict control over the Earth's population. This can be done imposing economic sanctions to those countries that won't enforce a single child policy (not only third world ones, every fucking country) and rewarding those others that comply.

In less than 150 years, humankind could be reduced to less than a billion souls, which would be much more reasonable and sustainable. A hundred million would be even better.

Obviously, this will never be done. But it would be one possible way to avert a global disaster without resorting to extreme violence.

To be frank, I don't give two shits either way. As long as the world stays more or less the same for the rest of my life I'm okay with it.

I don't really care what happens once I'm dead.

That was a lot of words that led to nothing but a pointless nihilistic coda. Do you have children?

[Fat Cat]

How about taking away rights, such as the right to keep popping them out?

There's no need to forcibly take away anything.

You can always reward and penalize via taxes: zero kids, less taxes. One kid, you pay what you've been paying. And for each sucesive kid, you will have to pay, say, 15% of your income.

That's the opposite of sensible, since only child bearers are ensuring a future tax base. There are countries that need additional births--like the USA or Japan--and countries that don't. Countries that need additional births should have social policies, like in Hungary, that promote child bearing. In countries that don't need additional births, pressure should be brought to bear to tamp down the rate of births, and no possible outlet should be available to these societies via out-migration.

[motherjuggs&speed]

People are conflating capitalism with resource depletion. They aren't the same thing, and failure to understand that destroys credibility.

I'll write up a good response to your question later, but as to this, I thing there's much more overlap between capitalism and resource depletion than you're admitting to.

Reading comprehension isn't your thing. I have not denied or admitted anything, just pointed out that people conflate separate things.

[Fat Cat]

Most Americans have not traveled in the former Communist world very much, and haven't seen the absolute environmental devastation those governments wrought. America, crown jewel of the Capitalist economies, is practically a nature preserve in comparison.

[DrDonkeyLove...]

Wealthy comfortable populations don't breed like rabbits.
The best way to create those populations is western democratic capitalist liberalism.

[Alfred_E._Neuman]

Wealthy comfortable populations don't breed like rabbits.
The best way to create those populations is western democratic capitalist liberalism.

I think the problem with that is that it requires raising several billion more people up to a western standard of living, with a commensurate increase in global resource consumption. And at least as great of a threat is the environmental impact of the energy production that goes along with it. We need to find a way to decouple standard of living from being equated with how much stuff you can consume and accumulate. We need a new metric.

[Fat Cat]

Wealthy comfortable populations don't breed like rabbits.
The best way to create those populations is western democratic capitalist liberalism.

Again, there is no proof of this. Just because that's what happened in Western countries does not mean, and has not meant, that all Asians or Africans will behave in the same way. There is significant evidence that foreign aid to African countries has accelerated population growth, and I've posted about it in this forum.

[Bram]

Alright fair enough on your map explanation.

Get out of here with your gaslighting.

Where do I say non-whites have no responsibility? Or whites have to save non-whites?

What does this have to do with any stance I take? If you want to make it a race issue, you're missing the point. There is a human race and we are going to be fucked if we don't look at things besides each other as the enemy.

Or this nonsense that I "brought up" genocide? Good lord, that is a pathetic, pathetic attempt at misdirection.

You're the one suggesting "You have to contain them, make the pressure unbearable, and allow no out-migration. Then, internal pressures can force societal change. Also, stop all funding, vaccinations, and food aid. I know, I know, I'm a monster but you said you wanted to save the planet!"

I suggested education and economic reform.

Once your idea "succeeds" in wiping out all the poor people that look different than you, the base problem still remains of our society depleting our world. All you would do is buy time to do it with a bunch of Group X's.