Current state of Automation

[Sceadwian]

I understand the exponential effect, but that would only occur given unlimited resources and room to expand

Correct, which means if the population can't continue to grow the stress will be alleviated elsewhere, it has to be... Economically, politically, socially as we've been directly observing in the news since I was at least 10.

Where I disagree with you is your premise that population will just grow out of control until a "disaster" occurs. This sounds again like bad management.

Yep, that's it in a nut shell on both counts. The population pressure causes management pressure and given the exponential growth there needs to be exponential improvement in management, which can't occur on a social/political level, it's impossible, change in those areas take generations (of human lives)!

We're not talking about a single family home here where there are a couple of individuals sometimes more, in fact the pattern is blatantly obvious if you look at it as a function of household population.... You NEVER see large households that are stable in the long term, they can't exist. As far as marriage in the states goes it's a 50/50 proposition which should give you an idea of the theoretical fragility of population in specific cases. Add a child to that and even then it's only the short term, as soon as the child grows up they move out, the cases of adult married people living with a child full time until the end of their lives is (at best) statistically unlikely. Populations always expand beyond the influence of other populations, social pressures require it or breakdowns occur (as they are currently)

There are exceptions but I have never heard of any that last for more than a few generations in a stable manner, and given political systems takes hundreds of years to change we're at a distinct disadvantage for being able to adapt to something that is occurring at the rate of population growth. We're connected to the point where new psychological disorders are being found nearly monthly that deal with information overload and social pressures as our ability to communicate to more and more people grew at a rate that makes a few multiple exponent explosion look like nothing!

Population growth causes the problem it's not the problem itself, it has nothing to do with population management at least from a biological standpoint, it's the social/political aspects that are stretched to the breaking point. Even if we were able to keep 10 times the population on this planet fed and alive we'd never be able to deal with it socially. Our mental makeup doesn't allow for that degree of social adaptation, and THAT will takes dozens of generations to fix. It's more likely that the social/economic/political pressures will get to the point where drastic events occur that will eradicate a large portion of the human population.

Outside of even that; given the stability issues facing the human race it's far more likely that an otherwise non catastrophic event could influence the delicate balance we're currently trying to attain to the point where an extinction event occurs. I see absolutely no long term suggestions that the human race is anything but accelerating towards the precipice of an inevitable fall given the scale and chaotic nature of the systems involved.

Only the next few thousand years of human evolution will show what is actually occurring but I've not seen even one iota of evidence that a stability plateau can be attained in the next few thousand years. I certainly hope I am incorrect but again I see no evidence to the contrary in anything I've ever experienced. I'm not pessimistic, I'm a realist.

 

[Mr RB]

Scaedwian, we have one of those weird arguments going where I pretty much agree with all of your technical points but not with your summary of what those points mean.

If you will allow a clumsy analogy it's like we have a car with the handbrake off and it's slowly starting to run away, and you make all good technical points about the runaway being exponential and surmise that it must end in disaster as its heading in a direction where people are standing.

I see the car slowly starting to runaway and surmise that there is plenty of ability to jump in the car and apply some brakes or steering management and steer the car safely into some of the vast expanses of empty land with no people.

And there really are enormous vast expanses of empty, almost unused land all over this planet. Overpopulation is a localised phenomenon, not a planetary one.

You talk about the psychological issues of overpopulation and I guess that is a personal view, and I have no idea how overpopulated Rochester NY is but I'm sure that is a factor in your view. If you lived in Bumfart Alaska (population 50) you might be worried about the psychological issues caused by isolation and lack of population! Nobody forces people to live in those small locales which are currently overpopulated. In fact technology encourages the population to move from city areas to cheaper rural areas, I'm one of those people who moved to a rural area with cheaper food and housing and much more land, and technology allows me to do basically the same job as I did in the city.

So I think we are just going to have to disagree. There are absolutely enormous amounts of land which could be used for solar energy/water harvesting, efficient hydroponic food growing, and housing. People don't need to live in the 0.5% of the country landmass that is an already overpopulated city area.

 

[Sceadwian]

You talk about the psychological issues of overpopulation and I guess that is a personal view

This is not a personal view this is directly observed historically...
We're not talking about specific locals we're talking about the bulk of the population, specific cases are irrelevant, socio/politcal pressures have topple whole civilizations many on record.

I'm one of those people who moved to a rural area with cheaper food and housing and much more land, and technology allows me to do basically the same job as I did in the city.

You escaped the immediate effects for your lifetime, you have to think long term, dozens or hundres of generations thousands of years, with what we have currently for data.

We can disagree, I have no problem with disagreement, the problem is the picture as a whole isn't as simple as has even been laid out thus far.

You disagree only that the issues I bring up can not effect you for the foreseeable lifetime of you and perhaps your next of kin and even from that a few generations down the line.

As population continues to grow there will be no more rural areas, and the few that are will be fine just as they are for their generational based longevity...

You have to scale it past human comprehension and look at it from a systems analysis perspective.

I understand your viewpoint completely, and know it to have no logical basis in the extended sustainability of the human race.

I live in a suburb, bordering on rural, and I work in the heart of the city. My perspective is quiet a bit different and it extends beyond the myopic (no offense) viewpoint of a local that doesn't see the effects currently, I see the pressures even in the rural areas here at the borderline of the county, what you don't see is the pressures in the larger population centers. What happens when these centers collapse and the people remain? There will be a mass radiation of humanity into the surrounding areas, biological sustainability will have disintegrated at that point as management will not be cohesive enough.

I've looked at this inexhaustibly for most of my adult life and I have never seen outside of science fiction any rational possible method of sustainability that could work in the real world, even most of the fictional ones are pretty end of days in their long term results.

The first problem of management is how do you put the person in charge that knows what's best for us all and give him the power? Politics haven't done so well with that kind of thing... Even small groups..

 

[Mr RB]

...
You escaped the immediate effects for your lifetime, you have to think long term, dozens or hundres of generations thousands of years, with what we have currently for data.
...

And in such a long term problem you have within it a long term solution. A long term runaway can be corrected with a long term gentle steering (speaking in systems analysis). There are plenty of ways to gently curb population growth without going Orwellian on the masses.

What about nice tax breaks for families with only one child? Huge tax breaks for families with no children? Increasing penalites financial and otherwise for having more than one child. State funded contraception? China's one-child policy saw great success in curbing population growth. It is not that hard.

...
You disagree only that the issues I bring up can not effect you for the foreseeable lifetime of you and perhaps your next of kin and even from that a few generations down the line.
...

Not at all. I disagree with you mainly in the long term, my belief is that managing the resources and population gorwth is not only possible but it is relatively simple and well understood.

...
I understand your viewpoint completely, and know it to have no logical basis in the extended sustainability of the human race.

You don't see that we can make better use of the 70% of the planets landmass that currently lies wasted? You don't see that using that landmass would support many times more people than the current world population of 6 billion? Or you don't see that we could ever be able to gently manage to curb population gorwth to fit the available resources?

...
The first problem of management is how do you put the person in charge that knows what's best for us all and give him the power? Politics haven't done so well with that kind of thing... Even small groups..

Appoint me as planetary dictator. I'll devote large amounts of resources to better utilising the land mass for food and energy production, and change the tax system so corporations that make billions and use it for nothing more than making the corporation richer now divert money to the poor, to end all starvation and poverty provided (of course) they are willing to keep their population gorwth sensible.

Now if we appoint you as planetary dictator, well you believe there is no hope so you would start a world war and "cull" a huge chunk of the world's population... Regularly.

 

[neptune]

Sceadwian - is right on some points , but your focus is on 1000years after , it is beyond our focus of thinking .. no mathametical model can predict 1000 yrs after scenario.
i live in a country of 1.2 billion people , my city has 12 million residence equivalent of small country.
I will give statistics of my country.
we have plenty of food, to support upto 2 billion of population..instead we export food.
we have bad management practices of govt. food control which leads to millons starving.
Currently we have a rising economy which is leading to inflation. but less poverty
We have very less mechanisation for most of the industry because we have cheap labours available,
we have no respect for human lifes both in urban and rural center (Social issue) because of so much population
the most latest issue we are facing is change of social, economical and political structure. On which we have large debates.
Our future is tied to worlds future , if world remains calm and developing we will continue to rise.

 

[Mr RB]

...
i live in a country of 1.2 billion people , my city has 12 million residence equivalent of small country.
...

Wow 1.2 billion now really? I remember it wasn't that long ago that India's population was officially 700 million.

Is there any program to address that growth? Even education or government subsidised contraception?

 

[Sceadwian]

And in such a long term problem you have within it a long term solution. A long term runaway can be corrected with a long term gentle steering (speaking in systems analysis). There are plenty of ways to gently curb population growth without going Orwellian on the masses.

It's an exponential long term runaway, as I stated by the time you notice there's really a problem in the system itself it's already accelerating beyond control.

Not at all. I disagree with you mainly in the long term, my belief is that managing the resources and population gorwth is not only possible but it is relatively simple and well understood.

I'm not sure if you misunderstood the core basis of my previous post or if I'm not describing the true problem correctly. The problem isn't population growth specifically, it's the strains on the social and economic systems that population increase causes, it's those problems we are ill equipped to deal with. This is not about how to feed more people, this is about how to make that many people useful and socially able to exist peacefully. Population increase is just the trigger of the collapse, not the cause of it.

You don't see that we can make better use of the 70% of the planets landmass that currently lies wasted? You don't see that using that landmass would support many times more people than the current world population of 6 billion? Or you don't see that we could ever be able to gently manage to curb population gorwth to fit the available resources?

I'm hoping you understand why my previous quote response now makes this point moot, as I stated this has nothing to do with feeding clothing and keeping alive more people, it's the social and economic strains it places on a society that never had to deal with them before. Really read all the global news going on right now in politics and the economy in general, it's a very precarious place to be right now and the pressures will continue to mount, eventually something will break. Just look at the economic turmoil in the US and the EU, and the political unrest in the middle east, these are going to get worse and there's no solution to them for dozens of years an that's if things go smoothly. Yeah sure you say these things have been happening for years, but they're happening on larger and larger scales, every time we try to plug one hole another one just gets bigger, when we deal with that one another one forms etc.. etc.. The trend is simple increasing system instability.

There is no one problem, it is the mounting straws that are being placed on humanities back as a whole, economically, socially, and politically these problems are gradually showing themselves more and more in our daily lives, and there's no alleviation of any kind in site. You can look at any one issue and write it off, but when you look at the gradually increasing total strain on the system in a world that is chaotic, destructive simplification is bound to occur at some point; it's the law of entropy taken to an extreme.

As with every single last known natural system that concentrates energy of any kind has been observed does so for one and only one purpose and that's to put it in a position where it can release the most amount of energy in order to fulfill the ultimate goal of the universe as has been observed so far which is to disperse all this activity into stasis, all increased complexity in a local system does is to increase the ability of the global system to release energy and reach a stable state of non activity. Just look at the ultimate 'eater of the universe' the black hole, and realize that if left alone they all will bleed to death and cease to exist given enough time. They exist to disperse, the concentration of energy only aids in that goal.

but your focus is on 1000years after , it is beyond our focus of thinking .. no mathametical model can predict 1000 yrs after scenario.

It is most definitely not beyond our focus of thinking. No one's talking about prediction here, the path to a brick wall can wander to and fro for hundreds of feet and you won't know which way you'll go next, but if the path leads to a brick wall if you're paying attention you'll notice before you hit it. My contention is that the human race is rapidly approaching a brick wall that no one is paying attention to, on the day we hit that brick wall, we'll look up wonder why we have a bump on our head, look back and see the path and then be crushed into oblivion without a thought by natural process dynamics.

neptune, the world is not remaining calm, there is increasing turmoil in every single last sector of human global existence. Sure there are good spots, but as a whole system breakdowns are increasing.

I don't see much else for us to discuss beyond what we've each said so far though, we'll just have to agree to talk again in 20 years and see how things have progressed =>

 

[neptune]

and what will happen when we hit Brickwall ? is hitting a brickwall a problem seriously

Wow 1.2 billion now really? I remember it wasn't that long ago that India's population was officially 700 million.
Is there any program to address that growth? Even education or government subsidised contraception?

Contraception are available for very cheap prices in every store of country. Govt. programme of 2 child policy has worked a little but is seen in only upper class and middle class.
The only reason our rate of pop. increase is decreasing because of natural law , more population means less resources and hence poverty and lots of mental pressure. pop. control itself naturally , we cant enforce people to have less babys because we are not communist china

 

[Sceadwian]

neptune, population increase doesn't self regulate like you think, in fact the exact opposite occurs.

 

[Mr RB]

Scaedwian, again you have made some very good points and I don't really disagree with anything, apart from a couple of issues below;

...
You can look at any one issue and write it off, but when you look at the gradually increasing total strain on the system in a world that is chaotic, destructive simplification is bound to occur at some point; it's the law of entropy taken to an extreme.
...

And my point throughout this discussion is about "management". Management is basically the opposite of natural chaotic entropy. Man has the ability to plan and manage, and is not entirely at the mercy of natural entropy. And an extension of my point is that we are evolving and becoming better at managment. Better at long term sensing and planning and better at implementing high tech plans.

Most of the recent strife is not purely a population issues, it has occured in regions which are badly managed and poorer less developed regions. In one way that is proof of my point, where things are better managed and people have access to better technology and lifestyle there is very little strife.

And it's not a new phenomenon, even in ancient Greek and Roman times there were plenty of examples of poor/overpopulated badly managed regions in strife and well managed regions doing very well. And the planet had a very much smaller population then.

You're still talking about problems currently occuring from "overpopulation" and again I'll state that is a local issue, as the planet is not overpopulated. Having large populations in small geographic regions is not "the planet being overpopulated" it is an issue of bad management. The planet is underpopulated but very poorly distributed.

If your street had 50 empty houses, but you were suffering with 100 people living in your house, that is not overpopulation. It is a bad distribution caused by bad management. And the legitimate problems you mention could be addressed and improved by better mangement and better distribution and will not necessarily end in disaster, although I fully expect problems along the way as there always has been throughout the ages.

If we replace your "natural entropy" model with a real world human historical model, the evidence throughout the ages is that the population grows, and has some issues, but largely we get more populated and more civilised and a better standard of living. I believe that will continue. So in 100 or 200 years from now the planet will have a lot more population, living in more civilised and less violent society, and with a higher standard of living, and will almost certainly be more decentralised (ie better distributed population).

... we cant enforce people to have less babys because we are not communist china ...

Sure, but there is a fine grey line between enforcing and encouraging. If the problem is poor uneducated people having too many babies then a system of "encouragement" like education plus financial incentives can do wonders.

 

[neptune]

neptune, population increase doesn't self regulate like you think, in fact the exact opposite occurs.

maybe our pop. is self regulating because of economical model we follow, the less children we have then more resources can be chanelled into them, making them productive member of society.

If the problem is poor uneducated people having too many babies then a system of "encouragement" like education plus financial incentives can do wonders.

like how ?
if you have 2 children Govt. will support education for them, this scheme will be too costly for our budget

 

[Mr RB]

Sorry I should have clarified that, I didn't mean general education like schools, I meant education about population issues like media advertising, promoting cheap/free contrception and explaining the other "encouragement incentives".

 

[neptune]

"encouragement incentives" like what ?

 

[Mr RB]

Financial incentives motivate the population rather well. Tax breaks, home loan grants, education deals etc. Licensing works well too, ie marriage licensing and "allow to have a child" licensing.

Here in Australia we do the opposite, we pay stupid uneducated teenage females to have kids without a husband. They pop out a string of kids and each one brings more cash from the government. Hopefully someone will wise up soon. Personally I'd give a large fine to a stupid teenage female that has a child without a husband, and make her work it off. That would stop them pretty quick.

 

[neptune]

Here in Australia we do the opposite, we pay stupid uneducated teenage females to have kids without a husband. They pop out a string of kids and each one brings more cash from the government. Hopefully someone will wise up soon. Personally I'd give a large fine to a stupid teenage female that has a child without a husband, and make her work it off. That would stop them pretty quick.

ROFL !

Financial incentives motivate the population rather well. Tax breaks, home loan grants, education deals etc. Licensing works well too, ie marriage licensing and "allow to have a child" licensing.

I have a different startegy. see we will make Budget of this country in a manner which will squeeze Both parents to have 2 childrens. here we have 70% of population as self employed.
For Example - Free primary education for upto 2 childrens only.
-Tax incentive for couple with 1 child
-Inflation of price in life's basic items, so that poor people dont reproduce out of proportion
-Certain degree of Unemployment benefit for Parents with 2 childrens
-Govt. schemes on Public transport to have 4 seats ticket beneficiary
-and ofc Rapid machenisation of labourious industries.

i havent thought of further points, but i will