Space & Exploration

[Arvandor]

When I think about all the food we throw in the trash, or our obnoxious habit of not being able to sell anything unless it's wrapped in six different plastic containers embedded into each other, I could barf.

I just made myself a meal that could feed a family of four - but I assure you, not a crumb will go to waste. I'm hungry.

[mikekerrIII]

Now, sure. But we're also not in a catastrophic water shortage now, either, and won't be for quite a while (likely in neither of our lifetimes). It's one thing that's being worked on, is feasible and with tech improvements (as all tech does), could be helpful.

Water shortages will never be universal places like the US great lakes region will never have that problem. Other places, that happen to be where a majority of humanity lives constantly face that problem

[mikekerrIII]

Water shortages will never be universal places like the US great lakes region will never have that problem. Other places, that happen to be where a majority of humanity lives constantly face that problem

The worlds population has more than doubled in my lifetime, the US population nearly so, How long can that go on?

[ChadH]

The worlds population has more than doubled in my lifetime, the US population nearly so, How long can that go on?

Coincidentally, I just finished writing a 15 page essay on overpopulation. Here's a fun fact I borrowed from the Huffington Post:
"Demographers say it took until 1804 for the world to reach its first billion people and a century more until it hit 2 billion in 1927. Soon the numbers began to cascade: 3 billion in 1959, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1987, 6 billion in 1998.
The U.N. estimates the world population will reach 8 billion by 2025 and 10 billion by 2083. But the numbers could vary widely, depending on life expectancy, access to birth control, infant mortality rates and other factors"

How long can it go on? It's unnatural that it's gone this far, normally nature would've corrected the situation on it's own by now.

[ChadH]

Exactly.

Technological advances are the only things that can balance the scales between overpopulation and over-consumption of finite resources.

We are about due for a huge catastrophic event in our species. Periods of rapid population growth are followed by rapid population decline. Our population increased steadily until the early 1900s and it has shot straight up since then. It can't last forever.


If only we could move quicker to sustainable energy practices, but they make baby Jesus and bald eagles cry...

I missed this post earlier. You beat me to the punch.

[Archamedes]

Well The dinosaurs had their time on Earth & nature with the help of the Alverez asteroid decided their time was up. No matter who thinks they are the most powerful, or which country thinks they have the better people, if nature decides that its time to trim the waste then in the end we are all the same. If we get another ice age or devastating asteroid hit us, then it really will go back to the basic laws of nature, survival of the fittest and most resiliant. Effectively a nature reset button.

I think that 90% of the worlds population would go, if not because of the initial disaster, but because people as a society are now slaves to luxuries, technology and shiny things we all take for granted that take over our lives. We have mostly lost our primitive animal instincts of survival, and only a select few have what it takes to live against the elements and without technology

[Charles RB]

Nature can't decide. It's not sentient.

[mikekerrIII]

Nature can't decide. It's not sentient.

Self-stabilizing complex Systems do usually find a means to correct themselves though

[Archamedes]

Nature can't decide. It's not sentient.

I beg to differ. You have to remember theres one thing people haven't picked up on yet when it comes to overpopulation and that is disease. The human race is too healthy nowadays, & our life expectancy has doubled over the years due to medicines and cures to diseases, bacteria and infections. Disease was natures original plan of trying to keep the population under control (survival of the fittest) But because we got too smart, we discovered cures and treatments that prevent us dying from what used to be a very common and natural way to die. I mean yes its all good that scientists are trying to find cures to cancer and aids and even the common cold... but by doing so they are also extending the lives of those who in natures eyes were destined to die from something that we now take an injection to protect our immune system from.

so when aunt Ada gets cancer, she has chemotherapy and radiotherapy and is saved. Its a great feeling to know her life is saved and she can live a few more years, and she beat natures plan. Because nature originally decided that for whatever reason, poor aunt Ada was going to die at 50 and her cancer cells activated. So if you then take that further out and you have 100 aunt adas cured, thats an extra hundred people still active in the population, add it up again to a 1000 and before ou know it you have hundreds of thousand of people if not millions who were intentially written out as a result of natural selection, yet science kept them going.

Its very cruel I know, but nature does not descriminate, if you get chosen, then there better be a treatment there for you, because nature keeps throwing out new viral infections and mutations to try new alternative ways of taking us down, like MRSA etc...

[mikekerrIII]

I beg to differ. You have to remember theres one thing people haven't picked up on yet when it comes to overpopulation and that is disease. The human race is too healthy nowadays, & our life expectancy has doubled over the years due to medicines and cures to diseases, bacteria and infections. Disease was natures original plan of trying to keep the population under control (survival of the fittest) But because we got too smart, we discovered cures and treatments that prevent us dying from what used to be a very common and natural way to die. I mean yes its all good that scientists are trying to find cures to cancer and aids and even the common cold... but by doing so they are also extending the lives of those who in natures eyes were destined to die from something that we now take an injection to protect our immune system from.

so when aunt Ada gets cancer, she has chemotherapy and radiotherapy and is saved. Its a great feeling to know her life is saved and she can live a few more years, and she beat natures plan. Because nature originally decided that for whatever reason, poor aunt Ada was going to die at 50 and her cancer cells activated. So if you then take that further out and you have 100 aunt adas cured, thats an extra hundred people still active in the population, add it up again to a 1000 and before ou know it you have hundreds of thousand of people if not millions who were intentially written out as a result of natural selection, yet science kept them going.

Its very cruel I know, but nature does not descriminate, if you get chosen, then there better be a treatment there for you, because nature keeps throwing out new viral infections and mutations to try new alternative ways of taking us down, like MRSA etc...

Those are physical effects not sentience. Nature does not have volition

[Iangould]

I think that 90% of the worlds population would go, if not because of the initial disaster, but because people as a society are now slaves to luxuries, technology and shiny things we all take for granted that take over our lives. We have mostly lost our primitive animal instincts of survival, and only a select few have what it takes to live against the elements and without technology

Most people are not Americans nor are they citizens of other developed countries.

[chrisgiff]

Well The dinosaurs had their time on Earth & nature with the help of the Alverez asteroid decided their time was up. No matter who thinks they are the most powerful, or which country thinks they have the better people, if nature decides that its time to trim the waste then in the end we are all the same. If we get another ice age or devastating asteroid hit us, then it really will go back to the basic laws of nature, survival of the fittest and most resiliant. Effectively a nature reset button.

I think that 90% of the worlds population would go, if not because of the initial disaster, but because people as a society are now slaves to luxuries, technology and shiny things we all take for granted that take over our lives. We have mostly lost our primitive animal instincts of survival, and only a select few have what it takes to live against the elements and without technology

Unlike dinosaurs, we have the ability to monitor asteroids.

NASA hasn't discovered all near-Earth objects yet, but they discover more as time goes on. There are also plenty of designs to destroy asteroids with missiles or change their trajectory with satellite like objects. Its unlikely an asteroid would be able to surprise us and there not be enough time to do something about it.

Using a small craft to slightly change the trajectory seems the most plausible option since nuking it would probably turn it into a million miniature asteroids. Basically, the plan would be to "park" a small craft just in front of an asteroid and the gravity from the small craft would change the trajectory of the asteroid just enough so it would miss Earth.

I think 2005 YU55 is the current biggest threat and even there is supposedly less than a 1% chance it could hit Earth. The game changer is the the Earth's gravity can change the trajectory of the asteroids if they come too close and increase the chances they would hit Earth when they come back around in the future.

[Paradox]

chrisgiff makes me ask:

Using a small craft to slightly change the trajectory seems the most plausible option since nuking it would probably turn it into a million miniature asteroids. Basically, the plan would be to "park" a small craft just in front of an asteroid and the gravity from the small craft would change the trajectory of the asteroid just enough so it would miss Earth.

Is there a key typo or mis-wording in there somewhere? Because, as stated, it's patent nonsense. The gravity from anything humans could build would be negligible.

[chrisgiff]

Is there a key typo or mis-wording in there somewhere? Because, as stated, it's patent nonsense. The gravity from anything humans could build would be negligible.

Sorry, shouldn't have said "small". Just meant small in comparison to the asteroid itself. The idea is to just move the asteroid enough to miss Earth.

Gravity Tractor on Wikipedia.

[Paradox]

Yes, "small" would be the wrong word for something more massive than we can concievabley create at the moment.

Thanks for clearing that up.