Monte: "Get out of the way of infectious disease and stop trying to save everyone with extraneous measures. Choose from the right hand list first or acqueisce to nature."
Just so I am clear as to the modality of "getting out of the way of infectious disease." Are you implying that we not treat the sick, and stop all research into cures for disease?
PeakOil is You
Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
by Snik » Fri 20 Jun 2008, 17:52:59
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Snik - Peat
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Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
by AlexdeLarge » Fri 20 Jun 2008, 18:21:47
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Homesteader', ' ') Actually, I'm mostly a constitutional republic kind of person. You know, the kind the founding fathers had in mind, then put it in writing, then succeeding generations frittered away.
Then we are in agreement.
What we have to careful of is when people are faced with hardships and economic depression, they have an urge to look for help from a strong,centralized government. They scapegoat and blame others for problems that may be beyond anyones control.
I'm a realist. I think peak oil is going have a significant impact on economies and society. We may be in for rough times, maybe even a long depression. But I am also optimistic that we will, with time and innovation, overcome the challenges of energy depletion.
What worries me is that we may give up to many of our rights in the process.
Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.
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AlexdeLarge - Heavy Crude
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Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
by Homesteader » Fri 20 Jun 2008, 18:57:29
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AlexdeLarge', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Homesteader', ' ') Actually, I'm mostly a constitutional republic kind of person. You know, the kind the founding fathers had in mind, then put it in writing, then succeeding generations frittered away.
Then we are in agreement.
What we have to careful of is when people are faced with hardships and economic depression, they have an urge to look for help from a strong,centralized government. They scapegoat and blame others for problems that may be beyond anyones control. I'm a realist. I think peak oil is going have a significant impact on economies and society. We may be in for rough times, maybe even a long depression. But I am also optimistic that we will, with time and innovation, overcome the challenges of energy depletion.
What worries me is that we may give up to many of our rights in the process.
From what I've studied the rights started going away almost as soon as the ink was dry on the Constitution starting with the first Central Bank.
It seems where we disagree is that the challenge of energy( and resource depletion) will be overcome through innovation. (I suppose you mean technology there)
I hope I'm wrong and you are right, but I simply don't see it.
edited to add: FWIW what I believe will happen and what I believe are [s]often[/s]almost always at odds with one another.
As life gets harder and harder for more and more people they will cry out to be saved and will give up pretty much anything and everything to the right politician(s) in order to be deluded just a little longer.
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…"
Sir Winston Churchill
Beliefs are what people fall back on when the facts make them uncomfortable.
Sir Winston Churchill
Beliefs are what people fall back on when the facts make them uncomfortable.
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Re: Lifting the Ban on Off-shore Drilling:The Facts
by MonteQuest » Fri 20 Jun 2008, 19:08:18
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snik', ' ') Are you implying that we not treat the sick, and stop all research into cures for disease?
You have a problem with letting our natural predators limit our population when we won't?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Montequest', 'T')he total population of the world has remained essentially constant for most of the history of mankind. World population fluctuated between 10 million and 300 million for most of the last 10,000 years, never reaching 1 billion until about 1850. The biggest single factor in preventing sustained population growth has been infectious diseases. They were our human predator, and they helped to keep our population in check.
Prior to the discovery of the germ theory of disease in the mid-1800’s, 50% of the people born into the world died before reaching the age of five, with infectious disease being the number one cause of death. An even more significant problem was infectious plague. Any time population became really dense, it was just a matter of time until an infectious plague exploded in the dense population and quickly returned the population to previous low levels. This was a Darwinian world.
Disease can be looked upon as man’s keystone predator. “Keystone predator” is an ecological term used to describe the basic principle by which a predator may be a balancing force on an ecosystem. For this reason, special care must be taken with identified keystone predators to keep them from being hunted out of an ecosystem. Other than in some vials in a lab at the CDC, many of man’s keystone predators are extinct; others are of little consequence. Yes, we are no longer plagued with the evils of disease, but that was nature’s way of controlling our numbers and insuring a strong gene pool.
In November 1991, Jacques-Yves Cousteau reportedly said, in response to an interviewer's question, "Some snakes, mosquitoes, and other animal species pose threats or dangers for humankind. Can they be eliminated like viruses that cause certain diseases?," Cousteau said: "Getting rid of viruses is an admirable idea, but it raises enormous problems. In the first 1,400 years of the Christian era, population numbers were virtually stationary. Through epidemics, nature compensated for excess births by excess deaths. I talked about this problem with the director of the Egyptian Academy of Sciences. He told me that scientists were appalled to think that by the year 2080 the population of Egypt might reach 250 million. What should we do to eliminate suffering and disease? It's a wonderful idea but perhaps not altogether a beneficial one in the long run. If we try to implement it we may jeopardize the future of our species. It's terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn't even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable."
We must intervene and become our own predator; a Darwinian application in all of its aspects. To many people, the mere suggestion of population control, much less reduction, is out of the question, especially if it entails addressing both the birth rate and the death rate. But like Hardin points out; we must choose — or acquiesce in the destruction of the commons that mankind calls Earth. Not the Earth itself, as that would be quite presumptuous, but its’ ability to support us.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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