Scientist Predicts Brutal Population Correction

Planet earth is good for another 1.5 billion years approximately... so the scientists presume. Humans on the other hand… well… there is no doubt we will self destruct. However before we do that an off offshoot of humanity called Artificial Intelligence will push us to one side and make life quite uncomfortable.

Earth needs the sun in order to survive…however… one day the sun will give up the ghost. We will not be here to see it though, we will have long disappeared and a new life form will take over.

I had a dream, which was not all a dream
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air

( From the poem Darkness by Lord Byron)
 

OldFeller said:
But life — it goes on. It always has. It always will. Don’t forget that."
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Certainly life goes on.

That doesn't mean that such life will be humans.

Scientists recently revived bacteria that had been dormant for 20,000 years. Humans are a physically fragile species. And considering the havoc we have wrecked upon numerous other species that were no threat to us, I'm not 100% certain we deserve to continue much longer anyway.
 
oldaunt said:
And South America.
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Not sure what you mean here. The interactive map shows typical fertility rates per woman as around 2 in Sth American countries. That is just replacement level and pretty much the same as US.

When considering the fertility rate it is also important to note the infant mortality rate.
 

Pepper said:
Monkeys have tails. We're apes. Naked ones.
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Indeed true. (Except grooms at their wedding.)

But it is also true that apes evolved from earlier monkeys about 23 million years ago. Monkeys first appeared about 34 million years ago, after themselves evolving from earlier primate prosimians like lemurs and tarsiers. For my mocking purposes of anthropormorphic homo sapiens, I enjoy making fun of we humans place in the universe by referring to us as "earth monkeys" :giggle:though "ape" would have worked too.

Early Primate Evolution: The First Primates
 
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The population explosion is in the Third world. For a population to grow, a fertility rate above 2.2 is necessary. The First world, without a human flood from the Third world, would, and is, shrinking. If that First world refused immigration the problem might well be solved.
Total fertility rate
 
I'm sure some people here must be directly involved, in one way or another, with environmental conservation & restoration, or promotion of more sustainable lifestyles (& an attempt at living it). Maybe share some of that here in this thread? (Or we could start another one specific to this.)
 
I used to contribute to a couple of major conservation organizations. They acquired and consolidated tracts of land to create preserves. After a decade or so I started getting more detailed reports as a long-time contributor. Within a few years it was clear to me that the most prime tracts got set aside and sold at a discount to board members and people they were connected with. Nothing like acquiring large holdings surrounded by lands set aside from development, hmm?

I quite contributing immediately. The more I looked into it the more corrupt I found "environmental conservation" to be in reality.

It's a scam.
 
dilettante said:
I used to contribute to a couple of major conservation organizations. They acquired and consolidated tracts of land to create preserves. After a decade or so I started getting more detailed reports as a long-time contributor. Within a few years it was clear to me that the most prime tracts got set aside and sold at a discount to board members and people they were connected with. Nothing like acquiring large holdings surrounded by lands set aside from development, hmm?

I quite contributing immediately. The more I looked into it the more corrupt I found "environmental conservation" to be in reality.

It's a scam.
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Well, yeah, that sounds very disappointing. Of course, I do not know all the details that you do. I fully understand the vulnerability of tracts that are no longer "in trust" and have become private property.

Sometimes big organizations have genuinely intended to do a lot & do it well... but after some time they find they've bitten off more than their finances can deal with. We might chalk that up to bad judgment, or whatever. In a situation like this, I'd be interested to know — and I guess you would know — whether those board-member purchasers (probably wealthy people) wound up stewarding the tracts for conservation or restoration. I gather you determined they did not.
 
My opinion is we humans have nothing better to do than to predict our own demise. the Bible is chocked full of gods araith, the end of times and punishment or delight with the prospects of heaven and hell. We are obsessed with death and the afterlife. It is no wonder we are freaked out by dying even though dying is what happens afterlife. We are screwed up and we don’t know how to fix this mess we live in.
 
Planet earth will see its massive loss of life in areas where volcanoes erupt, earthquakes open the land and swallow the masses, and tsunamis will sweep great numbers out to sea. Realignment will take place and the heartiest will prevail. Now, wasn't that simple? ;)
 
Human life is finite. Be it individual, or as a species. As someone else mentioned, the rock we stand on won't be around forever. Disease, wars, and ultimately our beloved Sun will do us in. Lives are being ended each and every hour on this planet in needless ways.

As for overall population, numbers will vary with prosperity. When people are poor, and poverty takes hold, long life won't happen.
 
VaughanJB said:
Human life is finite. Be it individual, or as a species. As someone else mentioned, the rock we stand on won't be around forever. Disease, wars, and ultimately our beloved Sun will do us in. Lives are being ended each and every hour on this planet in needless ways.

As for overall population, numbers will vary with prosperity. When people are poor, and poverty takes hold, long life won't happen.
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I get your point VJB, and agree with the assessment, however, the last one I would dial back a bit. Yes, in the larger picture, longer life spans can be tied to affordability of the very best medical care, however it's not always that simple. My grandfather was a poor farmer, and he ate what he grew and raised, and ultimately lived to 99.

Sometimes we underestimate how a low stress, and high activity life, coupled with good genetics, can significantly change the outcome. There are many very poor Okinawans who live a simple life, eat healthy, and defy the odds. So, to say it won't happen seems a little too categorical for me, and actually I think you would agree. It's just statistically not as common. Fair enough?
 
Knight said:
Stuff of science fiction now but, I've recently come to consider space exploration is about finding another planet that has a real possibility for sustaining human life.
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Unless we figure out a kind of wrinkle in space or develop Star Trek type warp speed, plus fortuitously (magically) stumble over an earth-twin, inhabiting another planet is pure fantasy.

The myriad and extraordinary logistical challenges of relocating large numbers of humans to Mars, then sustaining life there (growing crops, maintaining livable temperatures, creating and ensuring a properly balanced atmosphere bubble, etc.) suggest humans will not figure this out anytime soon. Elon Musk's pipe dream notwithstanding.

It's obviously simpler and wiser to stop destroying Mother Earth, where we evolved and is therefore ideally suited to fulfill our needs.

The triple threat of massive corporate power, unbridled capitalism, and individual governments who focus on short-term goals rather than long-term solutions are our undoing.
 
StarSong said:
Unless we figure out a kind of wrinkle in space or develop Star Trek type warp speed, plus fortuitously (magically) stumble over an earth-twin, inhabiting another planet is pure fantasy.

The myriad and extraordinary logistical challenges of relocating large numbers of humans to Mars, then sustaining life there (growing crops, maintaining livable temperatures, creating and ensuring a properly balanced atmosphere bubble, etc.) suggest humans will not figure this out anytime soon. Elon Musk's pipe dream notwithstanding.

It's obviously simpler and wiser to stop destroying Mother Earth, where we evolved and is therefore ideally suited to fulfill our needs.
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Yea, it would be a lot easier to fix the Earth....we are already here, got all our stuff here....shrug.gif

StarSong said:
The triple threat of massive corporate power, unbridled capitalism, and individual governments who focus on short-term goals rather than long-term solutions are our undoing.
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...and that my friends is why humankind is doomed, those that have all the power refuse to employ that power to save the planet.

vhKMa3c.jpg
 
bobcat said:
I get your point VJB, and agree with the assessment, however, the last one I would dial back a bit. Yes, in the larger picture, longer life spans can be tied to affordability of the very best medical care, however it's not always that simple. My grandfather was a poor farmer, and he ate what he grew and raised, and ultimately lived to 99.

Sometimes we underestimate how a low stress, and high activity life, coupled with good genetics, can significantly change the outcome. There are many very poor Okinawans who live a simple life, eat healthy, and defy the odds. So, to say it won't happen seems a little too categorical for me, and actually I think you would agree. It's just statistically not as common. Fair enough?
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Yes, fair enough. These days we tend to summarize all outcomes by looking for some cause to lay blame on. Got cancer? Perhaps it was a bad diet, pollution in the air, a vaccine. In reality our lives can never truly ignore the great arbiter - our genetics. We're all destined to some outcome. Some diseases run in families due to errors in our DNA, and right now we can't fix that (when it comes, it will be a game changer). The cells of our body dying is pre-destined, it's built in. it's part of our nature. Our ultimate outcomes will be tied to myriad events, processes, and actions.

It would be nice to think we could live forever, but our biology simply doesn't allow it. Modern day life is far from healthy.
 

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