Letters to the Editor
Rob Seaman
Published Letters: 44 Editor's Choice: 4
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Re: boggled
[Read the article: "The World Without Us"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Songes says:
I agree that the main solution to the world's woes is reducing the population curve.
Rather a prerequisite to solving anything else. Again reducing isn't sufficient - exponential growth is fatal unless the slope approximates zero closely.
It is quite true that the higher the standard of living of a populace, the lower its birth rate
Frequently asserted, seems logical, but where are the data?
which creates the paradox of having to supply the ressources to meet said higher standard.
No paradox. Technology vastly magnifies the capabilities of the individual. The free market is not tailored to deliver the right technology, however, just the popular technology.
Why is national identity so important to us?
An interesting question, but irrelevant to finding a solution to the population bomb. Today's global players are the ones who will have to learn to play well together.
it really would take oh, some alien threat looming over us to begin to consider ourselves as human first
Rather, one expects any alien who drops by would simply shake its cephalopod in dismay at our global neuroses.
Increased urbanization is the key to decreased population and less imprint on the planet's ecosystems.
Perhaps. But we should focus on reaching a consensus on the existence of a problem before speculating on solutions. It's a lot easier to implement a solution when half the world isn't aggressively acting counter to their own best interests.
How do you tell a country 'you have to make less babies because you are poor'? You don't. you increase immigration instead and learn to share.
Sharing is good, but immigration is beside the point (this point, anyway) since it just redistributes the hungry mouths. You don't have to tell poor countries they have too many mouths to feed because they already know it. The goal should be to start modifying government policy soon enough that individuals will in turn modify their own procreative behavior voluntarily. Otherwise we'll see the forced enforcement of - ahem - "harsh" policies when our backs are to the wall.
The alternative to such pan-governmental population policies, no matter how draconian, would be the unleashing of the Four Horseman beyond any scale of horror seen before.
Personally, I'd prefer some modest tax incentives, a brisk reining in of the growth lobbies, and some progressive treaties between the first and third world nations.
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The solution is NOT outer space
[Read the article: "The World Without Us"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]DurianJoe writes:
Scenario three: we go to the stars. We need to colonize the moon, and Mars. We need to mine the resources of the asteroid belt. Set up solar energy panels in low orbit. After all, a house can hold only so many people.
Those may all be good things to do, but the population problem cannot be solved by off-planet emigration either. Our population today is 6.602 billion souls. The current growth rate is 1.167% per annum. (Data via CIA.) Do the math. Today there were 210,000 more souls and 6000 tons more human flesh pressing inward on Mother Earth than yesterday. Tomorrow there will be 210,000 more. The day after - another 210,000. In December 2007 that will be 211,000 per day - in May 2008, 212,000 per day, and so forth and so on. By next May - less than a year from now - there will be another 1.8 million tons of human flesh literally shouldering other species into extinction. That's not 1.8 million tons total - that's just the additional growth of skin and hair and sinew and good red meat locked up in your mama's Soylent Green recipe.
For space to matter in the solution of this problem, we have to build a fleet of ships capable of offloading 210,000 people - a new space fleet every day, year after year - forever. A space shuttle carries a crew of seven - so we need 30,000 space shuttles a day. (Of course, that only gets you to low Earth orbit.) For just one example, by May 2008, we would have to move 1.8 million tons of human cold cuts - that's the equivalent of 18 Nimitz class aircraft carriers - to some other distant, unwelcoming world.
And then, of course, you've just shifted the horizon of the always looming catastrophe to a collection of planets rather than a single planet. Since this is a doubling issue, colonizing another planet - say, a terraformed Venus - just buys you an additional 60 years. If you want to push the inevitable collapse of civilization off for 240 years (roughly the duration of the American Experiment to date) - well, you need 15 additional Earth clones.
Perhaps a pound of flesh is not the ultimate measure of Man?
- Just another reality based Eloi liberal.
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We are all Roger Thornhill
[Read the article: Psychologists to CIA: We condemn torture]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In North by Northwest, Cary Grant is mistaken for the non-existent Mr. Kaplan. Leo G. Carroll as a shadowy spymaster dispassionately exploits this mistaken identity. What would have happened to Carroll's character, the Professor, if his callous disregard for an innocent had been uncovered? In Mission Impossible, every episode begins with a disclaimer that Peter Graves' team will be disavowed if their activities are discovered.
What wusses are the current spymasters, the current chickenshit administration? To require their every outrageous and immoral action to be reclassified as within the bounds of legal propriety? Suck it up! Be a man! ...Or is it possible that they understand in their oh-so-pure heart-of-hearts that their behavior is reprehensible, their actions indefensible, their souls indelibly marked by these acts of pure evil? Their mothers would be so proud.
So, the spymasters are relying on Psychologists instead of Psychiatrists to avoid the entanglements of the Hippocratic Oath. Shouldn't the immediate follow-up question be to ask whether they are also using Chiropractors and other non-sworn medical personnel to reverse engineer somatic torture techniques? After all, who knows the limits of human stength and stamina better than those who labor in fields such as physical therapy and endurance training?
I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief.
Talk about self-actualization...