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Attention- website full of lies to dispute, any takers?

What's on your mind?
General interest discussions, not necessarily related to depletion.
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Unread postby FatherOfTwo » Wed 23 Feb 2005, 19:41:15

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'I')'m sorry, what exactly is false about John's assertions?

Oil is a concern only because of transportation. Its been readily demonstrated many times that theres enough recoverable nuclear fuel in the crust to last thousands of millinea.

Dezakin is a new poster.. go easy on him.
:lol:

Dezakin, try the search utility... you have lots of reading to do.
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Unread postby RealityCheckBounced » Wed 23 Feb 2005, 19:44:21

I just dropped him an email. I couldn't resist.
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Unread postby Dezakin » Wed 23 Feb 2005, 19:46:48

You'll forgive me if I am being a bit defensive, but that does sound a bit patronising: I ask what cracks in my knowledge must be filled?
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Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 23 Feb 2005, 21:18:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('johnmarkos', 'T')he site deserves serious analysis and dialogue. I'm reviewing it now and also suggesting McCarthy as an, "Ask the Experts," member.


Give me a fucking break. This guy is crackers. Serious analysis? Do I even have to address this nonsense? You guys do what you like, but it will be in the Open forum. Sure not worthy of discussion here in the main forum.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Q'). Is humanity suffering from an enormous loss of biodiversity.
A. The loss is quite small of the important or individually interesting species.
Q. Isn't it important to conserve energy?
A. Energy needs to be regarded as just another commodity, to be used in whatever quantity is cost-effective. It is available in whatever amounts may be needed. Treating its conservation as a special goal has been wasteful of human effort. We are the poorer for it.
Q. Is the population problem urgent?
A. Only in a few countries, and it is their problem, because they have sovereignty. People in the advanced countries can only provide technology, but adequate birth control technology has already been provided. For the world as a whole, the population problem may be important, but it is not urgent.
Q. Won't global warming do us in unless we drastically reduce our use of energy?
A. No. Global warming can be avoided or reversed should it turn out to be a serious problem.
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Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 23 Feb 2005, 21:33:42

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Myth of : John McCarthy's Sustainable Progress
Critiqued by Rupert Edwards

This page is a condensed rebuttal of the unsustainable flights of fancy of the cornucopian scientific propaganda, that believe business as usual with no-holds-bar technology will eventually save the Earth for those that matter. Probably the most dangerous thing on the infobahn propagating this delusion are John McCarthy's web-pages about "Progress And Its Sustainability". John lectures on the 'sustainability of progress' while researching the technological opportunities for humanity at Stanford University. John definitely is one smart dude and I have a lot of respect for his work in artificial intelligence.

Generally John's pages are refreshing, frank appraisal of technologies potentials, however as a self proclaimed "extreme optimist" many (yours truly included) would regard his optimism as unfounded to the point of delusion. John's prescription are all but devoid of any considerations a social justice, environmental sustainability or ethical dimensions.
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Unread postby JohnDenver » Wed 23 Feb 2005, 22:09:12

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Myth of : John McCarthy's Sustainable Progress
Critiqued by Rupert Edwards

<snip>

John's prescription are all but devoid of any considerations a social justice, environmental sustainability or ethical dimensions.


Phew boy. Here we go with the religion again.
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Unread postby JohnDenver » Wed 23 Feb 2005, 22:13:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', ' ')Sure not worthy of discussion here in the main forum.


We're not worthy! We're not worthy! :-D
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Unread postby MonteQuest » Wed 23 Feb 2005, 23:30:10

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')As oil becomes more expensive, everything else becomes more expensive; especially exotic technology.

Softlanding = oil & gas depletion is relatively smooth, and prices rise gradually.

Hard Landing = oil & gas depletion happens in large drops causing massive inflation.

Drop 5 or 10 million barrels per day from world supplies, oil prices skyrocket, and all these alternatives become much more expensive.


Yes, and with no alternatives in the funnel that would have any appreciable impact, the demand for energy to meet current consumption will overshadow diverting that energy to build any alternatives, especially those that have as yet to be proven to the masses. Or better yet: Gas rationing to build windmills or drill ANWR? Conservation or a nuke plant in your backyard? Ah, it'll be a snap. 8O
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Unread postby MonteQuest » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 01:34:14

I'll make this statement. Anybody who thinks this guy is credible has no business doing anything on this site but reading and learning to the contrary.
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Unread postby Dezakin » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 01:47:53

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'ll make this statement. Anybody who thinks this guy is credible has no business doing anything on this site but reading and learning to the contrary.


He's quite bright. He invented much of modern computer science. He gave us the language people love to hate, LISP.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')mportant and interesting is the criteria for the evaluation of a species right to exist? Some species just offer us nothing worth saving?The loss is quite small? 17,500 species per year go extinct, thousands more biologically extinct.

The part in bold just blows my mind. He has not a single clue about ecology or specie habitat


Only if you really believe humans are dependant on anything besides their crops. And really, I doubt civilization will even be based on biological humans in several hundred years.
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Unread postby MonteQuest » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 02:09:03

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'ll make this statement. Anybody who thinks this guy is credible has no business doing anything on this site but reading and learning to the contrary.


He's quite bright. He invented much of modern computer science. He gave us the language people love to hate, LISP.


Bright? Maybe about computers, but little else. Consider these two quotes:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')y actual opinion is that rich nations will solve the problem of taking care of their elderly by admitting many more immigrants than are admitted today. The immigrants will pay the American social security taxes in sufficient numbers to keep the system working. It was pointed out to me that the above does not take into account the possibility of robots and other forms of automation at the human level of intelligence. I think such robots will be developed, and then all of humanity will have the opportunity to join the idle rich.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n particular, we argue that the whole world can reach and maintain American standards of living with a population of even 15 billion. We also argue that maintaining material progress is the highest priority and the best way to ensure that population eventually stabilizes at a sustainable level with a standard of living above the present American level and continues to improve thereafter. I offer no opinion about a "right" population, and I suspect that population will eventually be limited by a sense of crowdedness rather than by material considerations.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')mportant and interesting is the criteria for the evaluation of a species right to exist? Some species just offer us nothing worth saving?The loss is quite small? 17,500 species per year go extinct, thousands more biologically extinct.

The part in bold just blows my mind. He has not a single clue about ecology or specie habitat.

Only if you really believe humans are dependant on anything besides their crops. And really, I doubt civilization will even be based on biological humans in several hundred years.

Humans are totally dependent upon the biological diversity of the planet for ecological stability. Have you never heard of the ecological web of life? Civilization will be the Borg? Damn, guess I am wasting my time here. :P
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Unread postby Liamj » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 02:23:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '
')Only if you really believe humans are dependant on anything besides their crops. And really, I doubt civilization will even be based on biological humans in several hundred years.


oh christ, another star trekker. :x
Lets start simple.
Have you, Dezakin, ever heard of something called pollination? Its a process, a function carried out by an organism, often a bug but can be a bird, animal, or the wind (depending on crop). Without a pollinator, most of your crops are just weeds. Just crops?
You might retort that farmers can ship in pollinating bees in hives, which indeed they do. Thats fine for bee pollinated crops (you eat much canola?), but... unfortnately US bees are suffering their own dieoff due to the veroa destructor (sp?) mite. Just crops?
Your crops also reqs good soil ecology, what it is that makes nutrients available to crop roots and without which they don't grow: bacteria, fungi, microfauna, and more. (fertilisers replace some/most NPK demand, but thats far from all plants require of soils). Just crops?
I could go on, but it'd take many years and we don't actually know the half of it. My point is, even if humans only needed crops (laughable idea), they in turn require at least hundreds of other species.

If its all so easy, if endless nuke energy is there waiting for us, you go find us:
a) a working breeder reactor
b) a human living on crops alone, using no other biological products (making own oxygen, fresh water, ...)

oh, and computer science? Electronics with a big head. Computer science as a good intro to planet systems science? :-D :-D
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Unread postby JohnDenver » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 03:12:47

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Liamj', 'M')y point is, even if humans only needed crops (laughable idea), they in turn require at least hundreds of other species.


The extinction of species has basically no impact on daily life. According to Monte, 20,000 species conked out last year, and it didn't affect me at all. My food's still coming off the truck, as usual. Where are all these species you're talking about? In one square foot of Amazon rain forest? Are you including microbes in that total?

Yes, the dodo and the tasmanian devil and the smallpox virus were fascinating creatures, but we seem to be doing just fine without them. In fact, the dinosaurs and about a jillion other species died off at the end of the Cretaceous, and thank god they did. It cleared out all the dead wood so we could take over.
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Unread postby Barbara » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 04:25:30

I'm with Monte Quest.
This guy is a mad. He reminds me of Ann Coulter statements, like "kill nature, rape her, it's yours" or something absurd like that.
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Unread postby MonteQuest » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 13:18:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', ' ')
The extinction of species has basically no impact on daily life. According to Monte, 20,000 species conked out last year, and it didn't affect me at all. My food's still coming off the truck, as usual.


I can see right now that JD didn't read my Big Picture thread, and if he did, he failed to grasp its import or just lacks the cognitive skills to think through what he expounds. How someone can remain so ossified in ignorance just flat escapes me.

The process of extinction is enormously complex, resulting from perhaps hundreds or even thousands of factors, many of which scientists (let alone lay people, and JohnDenver) fail to grasp. Mass extinctions, in which most of all plant and animal species died out, have occurred several times in the distant past. What is different about the current rash of extinctions is that its cause is the massive and widespread impact on the ecosystem of a single animal—man. Intact ecosystems perform many vital functions, like purifying the air, filtering harmful substances out of water, turning decayed matter into nutrients, preventing erosion and flooding, and moderating climate.

It is not known how many species can be eliminated from an ecosystem without its functioning being impaired. Eliminate just one species of insect and you may have destroyed the sole specific pollinator for a flowering plant; when that plant consequently vanishes, so may another group of insects that rely on it for food; each of those species might be an important parasite upon still another species of insect, a pest, which when left uncontrolled by parasitism will destroy further whole populations of trees, which themselves had been important because…this is the ecological web of life. It is all connected in a food chain—and we are at the top.
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Unread postby Dezakin » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 16:12:09

All noise and no substance. When species disapear, its because their niche is gone. Insects that do pollination on something as widespread as human crops will allways have a niche.

Even then, there are hundreds of crops that dont require insect pollination, and we can engineer those to our desires.

This pseudo-religous faith in the perfection of nature and the sins of man reads like a sermon. Hellfire is coming for our sins and all that.

These arguments of the balance of ecosystems seem to play on the fears of uncertainty. Its like saying we need legislation to preserve the sanctity of small companies, because widgit maker x produces staples for cog maker Y, and when those go out of business, the cogs can't get to us and we'll all suffer shortages.

We're not dependant on anything besides our crops. The rest are pretty parks.
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Unread postby Tyler_JC » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 16:18:20

We need air. We need clean water. We need to clear out toxins from our environment (most of which we created). I personally don't give a damn about the tree frogs, but if we mess up the ecosystem enough, our crops won't grow.

Most modern farming requires oil. Oil to run tractors. Oil to make fertilizers. Oil to run processing factories. Oil to grease the moving parts of all sorts of farm equipment. Oil to make plastic to transport food. Oil to move the trucks. Oil to fix the roads. Oil to move your car to the supermarket...THE ENTIRE SYSTEM REQUIRES OIL...
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Unread postby MonteQuest » Thu 24 Feb 2005, 17:15:12

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', ' ')
We're not dependant on anything besides our crops. The rest are pretty parks.


My mistake. Please don't feed the trolls.!
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Unread postby Doly » Fri 25 Feb 2005, 06:50:10

To put it in simple terms that everybody can understand: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" World ecology is working. We don't really know how it works. It's not such a good idea to tinker with it.
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One species

Unread postby julianj » Fri 25 Feb 2005, 13:04:37

Lets take just one species, and kill it off....

lets take....ummm....sparrows....nobody'll miss 'em.

Oh wait, they did that already, in China: The Great Leap Forward (ha ha) 1958-60

Chairman Mao decided that sparrows were vermin and everybody was to get them: open season on sparrows, in months, millions were killed and the sparrows in China brought to the verge of extinction.

The pests that would have been eaten by the sparrows multiplied, ate the crops...and a famine killed millions of people.

I think that is a lesson to us, not to mess with things that we don't understand. And if that is the consequence of destroying one species in one country, think what kind of chaos events killing thousands might have.

Incidentally, sparrows are disappearing in the UK for an unknown cause, and I just read in the Independent today that a whole lot of other birds numbers are declining rapidly. Worrying.
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