[Newsbot]

Title: Could civilization collapse' NASA-funded study looks at economic imbalances around world's carrying capacity
Category: Tech
Posted By: Strutz
Date: 2014-05-17 13:46:00
Canadian

[Jabberwalker]

Mathus wasn't wrong. He was just precocious by a couple of centuries.

[andyt]

$1:

Putting a positive spin on the study's results, the authors says that human societies are able to reach a sustainable state when they avoid economic inequality and limit resource use.

Doubt it will happen. But

[Thanos]

I liked NASA more when it was run by happy kids playing with rockets and not the sort of doomsday cultists that populate the place now.

[Jabberwalker]

The NASA people got that way by finding dead planets all over the place, then wondering why ours is not also that way. They seem to be saying that we are here by chance and that we hang from a thin thread.

[jj2424]

NASA is now the United Nations. Warped Liberalism is killing the planet.

[Jabberwalker]

I see. You don't like certain ideas so slap the "liberal" label on them. You must live in the United States.

Tell me, then? Were lies the truth? Fox Gnus?

[bootlegga]

jj2424 jj2424:

NASA is now the United Nations. Warped Liberalism is killing the planet.

Okay, let's return to the wonderful 50s - we can start with the 90% tax rates, massive government spending in R&D/infrastructure/big ideas and bump Union participation rates back up to 40% or so. Or is that too liberal for you too?

[bootlegga]

Thanos Thanos:

I liked NASA more when it was run by happy kids playing with rockets and not the sort of doomsday cultists that populate the place now.

NASA has always looked at things like this - the difference is that in the past, their budget was 90% space exploration and 10% everything else. Nowadays, its 90% everything else and 10% space exploration because of massive funding cuts since the 70s.

[N_Fiddledog]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Mathus wasn't wrong. He was just precocious by a couple of centuries.

What about John Holdren then? You know...Barrack Obama's science adviser?

Here's what he was "advising" back in 1977.

$1:

“organized evasive action: population control, limitation of material consumption, redistribution of wealth, transitions to technologies that are environmentally and socially less disruptive than today’s, and movement toward some kind of world government”

http://www.masterresource.org/2011/03/h ... althusian/

He was a contemporary and co-writer with Paul Ehrlich. You remember Paul Ehrlich, right? Wrote The Population Bomb...big New York Times bestseller?

What Holdren and Ehrlich are both most famous for today is predicting wrong.

[sandorski]

Thanos Thanos:

I liked NASA more when it was run by happy kids playing with rockets and not the sort of doomsday cultists that populate the place now.

Except they are anything but a Doomsday Cult. A Doomsday Cult merely has given up, NASA merely is saying that we need to change our way before Doom is inevitable.

[Jabberwalker]

bootlegga bootlegga:

jj2424 jj2424:

NASA is now the United Nations. Warped Liberalism is killing the planet.

Okay, let's return to the wonderful 50s - we can start with the 90% tax rates, massive government spending in R&D/infrastructure/big ideas and bump Union participation rates back up to 40% or so. Or is that too liberal for you too?

You mean back when people were put on black lists for thinking the wrong thoughts?

[Jabberwalker]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Mathus wasn't wrong. He was just precocious by a couple of centuries.

What about John Holdren then? You know...Barrack Obama's science adviser?

Here's what he was "advising" back in 1977.

$1:

“organized evasive action: population control, limitation of material consumption, redistribution of wealth, transitions to technologies that are environmentally and socially less disruptive than today’s, and movement toward some kind of world government”

http://www.masterresource.org/2011/03/h ... althusian/

He was a contemporary and co-writer with Paul Ehrlich. You remember Paul Ehrlich, right? Wrote The Population Bomb...big New York Times bestseller?

What Holdren and Ehrlich are both most famous for today is predicting wrong.

You mean, predicting a little early?

[andyt]

Unless population stabilizes at some point, Malthus has to be right. Any idiot can see that. (Barring space travel). But if population stabilizes, who will work to support all the old folks. Japan is already experiencing it, we're trying unsuccessfully to immigrate our way out of it - would have to at at leas quadruple the current intake to 1,000,000 a year to reverse the trend, and they'd all have to be young, and then it just moves the problem further into the future. And our whole economy seems to be dependent on growth - stop growth and the whole thing comes crashing down.

[Jabberwalker]

Even if population stabilizes, when the petroleum runs out, billions will die unless a substitute is found in time (and there is no certainty that it will happen).