Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? | Hacker News Reader

Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?

rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org

21 pointsamerika14 comments

Yes it can be avoided. The predicted collapse has been avoided during the forty years that Ehrlich has been making predictions like this. (I'm old enough to remember his early career, and how different the predicted future years of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s looked from what he predicted in my youth.)

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/apocalypse-not.aspx

http://www.masterresource.org/2010/03/howlin-wolf-paul-ehrli...

Ehrlich counts on people not remembering anything that happened before they were in high school, and being young enough not to remember what he has said time and time again, and been wrong about every time.

Every once in a while, it's worth reminding people that ad hominem is only a fallacy when the ad hominem is not relevant to the argument being made. In this case, ad hominem is not a fallacy; this source has a history of being repeatedly wrong about this exact topic without changing. At this point, even if he's correct about some particular point, the information content of the correct statement coming from him is still 0. Get it from other sources.

Haven't read the article, just wanted to point out that 40 years is nothing. In Jared Diamond's Collapse he tells about civilizations that collapsed after 4000 years.

I don't think we can assume that our current society exists in an equilibrium. We launched into the industrial age like a cannonball and we don't know yet where we will land.

Didn't some agricultural revolution in the last century safe our ass for the time being (I'm too lazy to google, basically one guy saved billions of lives). I don't know if that kind of agriculture is sustainable, though. Perhaps it requires a lot of energy, or it destroy the soil in the long run. (Maybe not - I don't know, just saying).

This guy is Norman Borlaug. Yes, the Green Revolution showed some negative side-effects (like all innovations).

Food is so important, yet so cheap that farmers can not sustain themselves. When people really start starving, food costs will rise and farmers will be the new rich.

There is no overpopulation. Overpopulation of urban centers, yes, overpopulation of useable land - no.

We'll have trouble sustaining the current growth, and the way money are spent on useless and short term stuff is alarming, but that will most likely lead to another recession instead of collapse.

That's my opinion on just these matters - the article is a great piece of information that needs to be read by everyone.

I've heard that Iowa can feed two United States (if we were content to eat only corn and beans). SO agriculture can be very powerful. If necessary we could make huge changes in production in a year (growing season) and respond to pressure.

Its politics alone that determine who starves and who enjoys the benefits of technological society.

Of all U.S. government policies that stand little chance of being reversed, the cheap food policy stand tall. As Bob Marley said, "A hungry mob is an angry mob." Nothing threatens the status quo more than the unavailability of food. Plus, individual farmers have little power. They have always relied on government to prevent them from being completely impoverished by the distributors, or in more modern times, by the seed technology companies.

Let's not all forgot the international food related riots a few years back.

First quote was from Prince Charles. Stopped reading right there.

I wish a global collapse would happen, I think it could do humanity some good in the long run.

I won't go as far to say a collapse would be good, but I think being mindful of our rate of expansion would be nice. There are limits to everything, why do we need to push all of them including the population limit?

The USA has a birth rate just barely above replenishment (and dropping), Europe has dropped below replenishment rate, etc.

Some pretty graphs here: http://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/2776214.html

Economically successful countries have lower birth rates. Want to decrease birth rates? Help the 3rd World become economically successful.

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