/sci/ - Science & Math

>People still believe in Malthus
>2015

This needs to stop

>>7340825
>How fucked is humanity?
Very, but it will survive Global Warming.

>>7340831
Right, because infinite growth on a finite planet is possible.

Go back to kindergarten, kid.

>>7340831
This. Every time people say there's too much of us and not enough resources they fail to take into account new more efficient technologies that allow us to grow and raise the standard of living

>>7340831

Seriously, when will people realize that resources are infinite.

>>7340858

>muh technology

Extrapolating our success with the earth as a steady state system to a dynamic biosphere that will literally need to be artificially jurryrigged with geoengineering to keep from phase transitioning to something rather unpleasant is a purt big extrapolation. Even our political ability to geoengineer is questionable not to speak of the technology.

>a bunch of 3rd world shitholes fall apart
literally who cares

>>7340875
I wasn't referring to using technology to artificially change climate I was referring to using technology to use resources more efficiently to prevent the downfall of mankind

>>7340825
>Humans will be extinct in 100 years
Not soon enough.

>>7340858
>This. Every time people say there's too much of us and not enough resources they fail to take into account new more efficient technologies that allow us to grow and raise the standard of living

AHHHAHHAHAH HAHAHAHH HAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAH

Go ask California, the epicenter of innovation and technology, how that's working for them and how technology has provided them with millions of gallons of drinkable water and how now they don't have to ration water.

Being this much of a polyanna is bad for your health... you must have a room temp IQ too.

>>7340884

You can't do that without geoengineering so yes, you were talking about it. Once a species gets to the point where its actions have a destabilizing effect on the global environment you either have to scale back (which isn't going to happen because fuck hippies) or start actively controlling the planetary system to counterbalance your effects.

>>7340899
It's funny how so many fall prey to cognitive dissonance.

Better resource utilization doesn't lead to sustainability. It leads to increased wealth or population. People don't fail to use what's available.

>>7340825
100 years is far too short

humans are adaptable and resilient
we'll probably survive at least another few thousand years, with a smaller population

industrial civilization might be in trouble though
but 100 years is still to short of a timeline

Then how do you expain birth rates in developed countries versus poorer ones?

We will have expanded onto another planet by then, nothing to worry about.

>>7340947
> We will have expanded onto another planet by then, nothing to worry about.
Hah! NO! Humans will probably never step their foot onto Mars. Robots will, but not humans. It's just way too expensive to send humans there and impossible to keep them alive for any longer amount of time.

Those who think this will be achieved are just blind optimists with no sense of reality.

I dont want to die, /sci/.

I can't wait to die, /sci/.

Let's die together, /sci/

We will all go together when we go

Inb4 dying party events

growth will taper off once civilisation begins to westernise
some developed countries are already below the replacement rate

infinite growth is impossible

>>7340825
Remember when Al Gore said Florida would be under water and the polar ice cap would be completely done by 2013?

>>7340899
>how that's working for them and how technology has provided them with millions of gallons of drinkable water and how now they don't have to ration water.

They're not using it to produce water or desalinate, they're using it to dump thousands of gallons into farming almonds in the desert.

The best technology in the world won't help you if you if you're using it wrong

life isn't worth living anyway

>>7340825
News Flash: Old scientist decades past his prime says something controversial

Nice clickbait.

>>7341037
not sure if want to live to see one of those

I am so sick of this fear mongering. If we are going extinct then so be it it is for the best

>le collective self-deprecation meme

We get it, humans=bad. Humans no good for planet. Humans no good for nothing. Now can you faggots actually discuss shit for once.

>>7341044

This. I mean just look at Japan for example. They have the problem of a birth rate below replacement levels. Hell, last year 268,000 more people were born in Japan than died. Anyone who says overpopulation will kill us is just an alarmist.

>>7340858

Those more efficient technologies themselves still need more resources and bigger infrastructure to support them.

And space on earth is limited. At this point for man to continue to progress we pretty much need to revamp the entire planet to suit our needs. Essentially doing what plants did long ago, make everything on this planet depend on us.

>>7340825
the only thing that will make us extinct is if we go into nuclear war or destroy ourselves with massive weapons. there's a thing called carrying capacity in ecology, basically there is a stable population for us, which we have currently exceeded with hydrocarbons as a fuel source, but eventually we will begin to die off and our populations will fall back down to something sustainable. we are not going to go extinct unless we personally kill ourselves off directly

Am I wrong in thinking that we'll be OK as a species once we reach the stars?

>>7341344
You're delusional.

That article reeks of alarmism. I seriously think whenever some scientist says this he's just trying to motivate people to do something about the enviroment because it's right, not because they really believe what they're saying. Kinda like when moms scare their kids with boogiemen.

>>7340825
we're fine, people back then were retards. the only people who are in danger of dying are the people living in poor as fuck countries

>>7341453
>people back then were retards
... and people now are not??
fgt pls

>>7341630
no, we really aren't.

I know it's popular to believe that "humanity is so dump XP" and that scientific and technological progress isn't actually progress and if we were really smart we'd just go back to naature maaan but guess what thats all just muh feelings bullshit.

>>7341637
>we really aren't
What do you mean by "we", Peasant?

>>7340882
Those 3rd world shitholes are the manufacturing/mining/farming hotspots that capitalist growth economies, technological development and first world lifestyles depend on. And they aren't the only susceptible regions anyway, plenty of developed nations will be hit just the same. Think about the effects of global instability would have on trade, or how financial markets would lose their importance when people can't even secure material resouces.

>>7340825
>Evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond said the parallels between what happened on Easter Island and what is occurring today on the planet as a whole are “chillingly obvious.”
Evolutionary biology is not a science and Jared Diamond has no business pretending to be a scientist. He writes books for soccer moms, English majors, and self-hating whites. I have no idea why he thinks what happened on Easter Island 400 years ago is somehow applicable to all of modern humanity, but I am confident that he is just as wrong about this as he is about everything else he has ever published.

On what basis? Climate change is not even remotely comparable to what happened on Easter Island. Also, they didn't die because they depleted the islands resources, otherwise how the fuck did they survive for 1600 years? Its was, you know, the Spaniards enslaving them and passing western diseases to them that finished them off.

>Evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond said the parallels between what happened on Easter Island and what is occurring today on the planet as a whole are “chillingly obvious.”

There are no parables. Jarad Diamond just says this shit to market his retarded books. Bet you any money he was one in the works which is why he's now making all this doomsday nonsense up.

>>7341769
>Evolutionary biology is not a science
Says who? A basement-dwelling neckbeard?

Dr Fenner's great. Read a bunch of his papers. He's at Stanford...

>>7342234
Evolutionary biology is not falsifiable nor testable. It's not a science.

>>7341783
his book "collapse" is pretty much exclusively about easter island and other tiny island collapses.

>>7340899
> all technology is the same

>>7340855
>Right, because infinite growth on a finite planet is possible.

I like your phrase, can I take it and use it everywhere?

>>7340958
Hah! NO! Humans will probably never step their foot onto the Moon. Robots will, but not humans. It's just way too expensive to send humans there and impossible to keep them alive for any longer amount of time.
Those who think this will be achieved are just blind optimists with no sense of reality.

:^)

>>7342447
>Evolutionary biology is not falsifiable nor testable.
Evo-bio is tested every day in research labs, and falsifiable by every such test, you sophomoric retard.

>>7341414
You're very smart. Much smarter than everyone else here. The fact that you talk down to everybody really proves that point. Good for you buddy, the smartest man on 4chan.

>>7340825
According to /pol/, it's all left wing propaganda. Just like anthropogenic climate change.

>>7341059

>sick of fear mongering
>we are going to die and we shouldn't be afraid

Top autist, so edgy i got cut

>>7341769
>Evolutionary biology is not a science
>>7342447
>Evolutionary biology is not falsifiable nor testable

Top retard

Evolutionary biology is tested using model organisms like yeast. There are literally thousands of falsified evolutionary experiments published ever year.
Molecular ecology/evolutionary biology are actually quite rigorous areas of biology

>>7340855
>birth rates are trending down
>infinite growth

read a book

>>7340858
>Hey guys I've lived and survived 21 years so far, that must mean I'll live forever!

>>7343031
The same people who deny evolutionary biology probably fall back on evolutionary psychology to make sexist arguments.

>le cave men hunted le mammoth while le cave women stayed in le kitchen and ate stone bon bons

>>7343021
When was /pol/'s opinion relevant in any possible way?

>>7343060
According to /pol/, they are the paragon of logic and reason.

>>7343059
Are you implying women are useful in some capacity? Can you cite a source?

>>7343064
Sure

Your mom is useful at pleasing my penis (My Dick, 2015)

>>7343068
>>7343068

>>7340825
>the parallels between what happened on Easter Island
>and what is occurring today on the planet as a whole are “chillingly obvious"
It's not at all "obvious", because to compare a small population with few resources to a very large population with huge resources is a considerable stretch of the concept of "parallels".

>>7343079
The parallels of depleting our current resources to satisfy the present without thinking about the future you dumbass.

On easter island they depleted everything without thinking about sustainability. In today's world we are depleting resources by advancing deforestation, ecological ecosystems, the ocean etc

The point is we have to find sustainable ways living and think about the future, not continuing destructive processes to supply our current needs.

>>7343089
But using wood for construction is considered "sustainable". As long as it is locally sourced :^)))

>>7343093

Wood products can be sustainable

Firstly they are carbon neutral: they don't add any carbon into the environment, they simply take some out then put it back in when they are destroyed. That is why biofuels are a sustainable fuel.

Secondly, wood when locally sources is generally specifically grown for construction. Meaning after it has been cut down the land is replanted and reused. As opposed to going into the bush/rainforest and cutting shit down.

investing in giant stone head production is not an effective way to combat pollution and overpopulaiton.

got it.

>>7343102
obviously biofuels are carbon neutral assuming all the engines used in production also run on biofuels; but land used for biofuel production is land not used for food

>>7343108
>but land used for biofuel production is land not used for food

Depends, there are projects to create biofuels from genetically engineered algae and bacteria. Because microbial cells can contain higher concentrations of fatty acids/biofuel products than any plant product. They also don't have the nutrient/space requirements needed for plants.

You can basically just have a shallow bathtub/trench in the sun and grow thick layers of algae for biofuel production.

>>7343117
He is still correct.

>>7340855
>human sperm is becoming less potent
>birthrates are lowering in most developed countries
>japan has a serious problem because nobody wants to reproduce
>infinite growth

>>7340825
Not surprised actually, I don't expect humanity to last 200 years before we, well, stop being human.

>>7340923
>Better resource utilization doesn't lead to sustainability. It leads to increased wealth or population.

That's why Japan is crying over the elderly and Africa's population is skyrocketing, right?