200m is too many for me. Unless they are all attractive women. — James Riley

You're a better man than me if you could handle that many!

I agree with you about the wastage in the US. I believe we Australians per capita are slightly worse than the US for CO2 emissions, and there are quite a few countries that are way worse. As far as production of waste goes apparently Canada is the worst, the US third after Bulgaria, and Australia is not in the top ten.

The problem with cutting population in the countries which are the economic dynamos, that would lead to collapse of those economies because of the workforce needed to sustain them. This is obviously not the case in underdeveloped countries where many people are malnourished or starving just because the population is higher than can be sustained without outside aid. If the economically developed countries collapse or even go into profound recession, then aid to the countries that need it will be greatly diminished, perhaps even cease.

Where do you get the 2% number? — Xtrix

Should have been 12%, now amended. That said, one article I read claimed that only about 200,000.000 could be supported using organic farming methods. Petrochemical based fertilizers destroy the micro-organisms in soil, and so are long-term unsustainable. I don't know how you envisage supporting a growing population in anything like the level of prosperity we (in the developed nations) currently enjoy in a world of diminishing resources.

And most people browse, not posting anything. — Manuel

Yes, I imagined that was probably true.

There’s a much stronger case for eliminating capitalism over reducing population. — Xtrix

As I understand it the planet cannot sustain both important habitats, soils, fisheries and aquifers and a human population of more than about 12% of the present population if everyone were to enjoy a standard of living equivalent to that enjoyed in the so-called developed nations. And that might be one of the more optimistic estimates when the prosperity enabled by cheap fossil fuel energy is taken into account. This is simply a question of resources and their sustainable use; I can't see how politics is going to make any difference to that basic equation.

Do you really think anybody on this forum is going to do anything other than talk about what we all need to do?

I have sold my soul to complacency.
I know I ain't gonna do squat. I think its better to be honestly lazy than to pretend to care about climate change, or any of these other issues. True caring about real issues is proven by doing, not by talking on internet forums. Nobody serious about in-acting change would come here to initiate that start. This is where people come to kill time. — Yohan

This is a rather pathetic set of assumptions and attitude. It's one thing to be lazy and not to care; it's another to be proudly parading that attitude as an example to others. You don't know what the people who post on here do or do not do regarding the global warming issue. You also don't know how many people who don't themselves contribute read and and are influenced by what they read on this site. :roll:

Jesus, talk about retrograde! :roll:

No worries, thanks Srap, I think it's total crap too, so we agree on that.

Oh, so the bacteria are already working on the problem and we don't need to do a thing? Sounds good!

Right so we fill the oceans with plastic eating bacteria? It might work, but it might also produce unintended negative consequences. Have you heard of the Cane Toad?

The plastic has apparently permeated the bodies of all the sea creatures in the form of micro plastic. Those who eat fish may be full of it too. Big job for the bacteria!

:up: Pertinent questions!

:up: It is not a pedantic matter of "either/ or"; meanings are both public and private. We all have multitudes of associations with words that are unique to each of us. These are not public meanings, although they may be shared with those of sympathetic mind.

Any personal meanings you might have either cannot enter into the conversation, their being yours and not ours; or they are both yours and ours, and hence not personal. — Banno

This is too black and white for my taste. The alternatives are not only that any meaning is either mine alone or is shared by everyone (i.e. is public). A meaning might be shared with only one other person or with a few or with many but not all. Taste and nuance is important, in philosophy as much as it is in poetry and the arts.

But I have often wanted to sit down and ask him and his wife (X?) how philanthropy doesn't work at cross-purposes: Doesn't education and helping people result in an increase of their foot print on the planet? One American costs more than a thousand starving people in X country. If will pull them up and cause a reduction in their reproduction/population, isn't that offset by their increasing foot print? Anyway, I digress.

As to other "pressing issues", one might argue that worrying about those other issues is spending a dollar chasing a dime. When your house is burning down, you might want to work on that first. Of what avail is equal wealth distribution, peace, solidarity, accountability, food and water, if you don't have a place to enjoy all that in? They aren't much good in a post-apocalyptical hell-scape. — James Riley

You have outlined the conundrum very well. This is exactly how I see the situation. If we stopped Big Agra and food aid to the countries that need it everything would collapse and countless millions would starve. That might solve the problem, but our economies would collapse and we would be in a post-apocalyptic world. And here we are trying to save everyone from Covid, which might only exacerbate the overall problem, but it is the right thing to do nonetheless, or so it seems to me.

Climate change is an existential threat. Like nuclear weapons. That should make it pretty high on our priority list. — Xtrix

Depletion of aquifers, depletion of fisheries and plastic pollution of oceans and destruction of soils by "Big Agra" are also existential threats. Destruction of forest habitat is also, on its own apart from its tie-in to global warming, an existential threat. Basically the only solution to the problem would seem to be a drastic reduction of human population, but that is an unacceptable aim, and probably very few people would want it to happen naturally (caused by a pandemic, catastrophic collapse of aquifers or fisheries) or by inadvertent human action (nuclear war).

Humanity is between a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes.

I said earlier I looked at that article and was not able to get it (my brain freezes when confronted with predicate calculus; I like to do my thinking in good ol' English). I came across an explanation in English on Wikipedia which I was able to understand:

Suppose p is a sentence that is an unknown truth; that is, the sentence p is true, but it is not known that p is true. In such a case, the sentence "the sentence p is an unknown truth" is true; and, if all truths are knowable, it should be possible to know that "p is an unknown truth". But this isn't possible, because as soon as we know "p is an unknown truth", we know that p is true, rendering p no longer an unknown truth, so the statement "p is an unknown truth" becomes a falsity. Hence, the statement "p is an unknown truth" cannot be both known and true at the same time. Therefore, if all truths are knowable, the set of "all truths" must not include any of the form "something is an unknown truth"; thus there must be no unknown truths, and thus all truths must be known.

The answer to this seems simple. We can stipulate that the sentence "p is an unknown truth" is true, just in case p denotes some undefined generic proposition, and that the truth of such propositions is in principle knowable. So the sentence "the sentence p is an unknown truth" is true, but it doesn't follow that we can know that p is true unless p becomes some concrete proposition, because otherwise knowing that p is true is meaningless. And that conflation between the generic indeterminate proposition p and any concrete proposition p is just what the apparent paradox depends upon. In other words "p is an unknown truth" is not itself an unknown truth, we know it is true if we take p to mean something like "there is some p"; it is unspecified p that is (stipulated to be) the unknown truth.

This can easily be seen if we substitute some concrete proposition for p. Taking the example I used earlier, we could speculate that 'Leonardo was gay' is an unknown truth that is in principle knowable (since someone at the time may have known that Leonardo was gay). Of course it might not be true, but that doesn't matter, because it could be. And if we could somehow come to know the truth about whether Leonardo was gay that would not present a paradox because it would cease to be an unknown truth and the sentence "p is an unknown truth" is not a timeless proposition; it would simply become "p was an unknown truth but is so no longer".

No worries. :smile:

Flippancy is just one step shy of the nest step, which is "looking at the bright side." — James Riley

:100: Yep, I've witnessed the very same human phenomenon in building and landscaping.

One wag opined that in the future (if not now) we will be resigned to aligning ourselves with the Plutocracy or Cartels, both of which rely upon each other to foment the preoccupation, division, distraction and lack of solidarity by using each other as a foil, while maintaining government as a punching bag for the people. — James Riley

"Divide and conquer". Solidarity of the people seems to be a distant fast-vanishing dream.

They are not totally synonymous except in a certain context as I already pointed out. They overlap when it comes to propositional claims.

is a fact that 1+1=2, — Janus


In base 2 numeration, 1+1=10. — Olivier5

You've pointlessly quoted me out of context, omitting the part in which I said I have not claimed that 1+1=2 is a fact, to make it seem that I have claimed that.

If I wanted to make that claim I could say that in the context of the decimal system it is a fact that 1+1=2 and in the context of the binary system it is a fact that 1+1=10. So what?

I don't know what will help, but I know flippancy won't.

Can you go a bit deeper into this inertia concept? Does it have anything to do with our nature? What could explain it? People seem to take lots and lots of convincing before they decide to not accept but just to merely consider a point of view. I've experienced this myself - it takes a huge amount of effort just to get heard, forget about changing people's minds. — TheMadFool

What I was referring to was not rational assent. Many people accept the reality of anthropogenically induced, or at least enhanced, climate change. What to do about it, including accepting a fairly drastic reduction in one's prosperity, comfort and convenience is the real stumbling block. The fact is that really significant change needs to be mandated by governments, but again the problem is getting any government that proposed such radical changes voted in, and then voted in again and again for a sufficient series of terms to effect the needed changes.

That's the way people seem to be; does it matter whether it has "anything to do with our nature"? The important question would be whether we can find a way to work around this inertia before it's too late. Your question reminds me of the Buddhist story about the person who has been shot with a poison arrow wanting to know what kind of poison it was, what kind of wood was the bow and arrow made from, who made the bow and arrow and so on, before consenting to treatment.

:up:

What if he had no sexual orientation? What if he was asexual or pansexual or zoophile? In these cases Leonardo was neither gay nor straight. — Olivier5

That doesn't matter because even though we can't know (observe as you put it) the situation vis a vis Leonardo's sex life or lack of it, if he was neither gay nor straight, then it is a fact that he was so.

If you have an example of a common usage of the word 'fact' as 'unknown actualities', I'm interested. I never saw it used this way. — Olivier5

There is an example right above. It is a fact that Leonardo was either gay, straight, or asexual, even though it is unknown which.

You see? The problem with your attitude to facts is you tend to box them in your imagination before they even appear phenomenologically. Doing so is dangerous, it assumes a lot, that could turn out false. Your definition of facts gives you a false certainty. — Olivier5

That is not correct, in fact it is backwards; rather my (and the common usage's) allowance for the existence of unknown facts allows for uncertainty; it allows that facts do not depend on our certainties. What we take to be facts may turn out not to be.

It is also confusing the concept of fact with the concept of objective truth, and generally I believe that words have distinct meanings and that one should not confuse them. What you are talking about is truth. — Olivier5

Truth and fact are synonymous, in both usages of the word fact. Actually if anything the idea of truth is more commonly applicable only to statements; truths are not so often equated to actualities, but to statements about actualities. It is the less common alethic idea of truth that equates with actuality, but even there only with actuality as it is revealed to us, not with "hidden" actualities..

So we can say both that the cat on the mat is a fact and that it is a fact that the cat is on the mat; the first showing the 'actuality' notion of fact and the latter the propositional notion. It is not so common to say that the cat on the mat is a truth or is true, but it is common to say that it is true that the cat is on the mat. But in any case, if someone said the cat on the mat is true, we would know what she meant. Also the situation may be quite different in other languages; and I am only addressing what I know to be common usages in English.

Language is sloppy and meanings are not always clearcut

I don't understand why you have chosen to address something I haven't actually claimed; that it is a fact that 1+1=2, rather than admitting that we disagree about the common meaning(s) or usages of the word 'fact'.

We disagree, as per the example, about whether there is a fact of the matter as to whether Leonardo was gay; and that disagreement is precisely on account of the fact that you don't allow for the definition of a fact as a state of affairs.

The conceptual sameness of truth and fact is demonstrated in common usage. It can easily be shown by the fact that "it is true that" and "it is a fact that" mean exactly the same thing. You are free to reject that usage for yourself, of course, but you haven't presented any good reason for such a rejection.

It hasn't been a hot topic since then, even though there have been some references made to it. From your posts it seems you are skeptical about it yourself. It's not surprising that nothing much has been done since it has arguably been something of a hot topic (maybe 20-30 years or so) because of the inertia I spoke of.

There is also the inertia (or momentum if you prefer) of the gigantic fossil-fueled infrastructures that have made us so prosperous. All of that, despite unrealistic calls by some of the green enthusiasts for immediate abandonment of fossil fuels, cannot be replaced overnight, even if only for technical reasons (and of course there are economic and political reasons as well).

How many times have climate alarmists been right? One day, I guess. — NOS4A2

If you mean climate scientists, the more pertinent question would be as to when they have been wrong. Other than that I don't know who you would be referring to as "climate alarmists" (which of course most of the scientists are not).

OK, then I'm not sure what you think could have been achieved in decades that took a couple of centuries.

I often feel guilty about being a supermarket shopper but the alternative seems daunting (plucking and cleaning a chicken for instance :yikes: — Wayfarer

Since I moved onto 15 acres I have considered farming animals, but I don't really have the stomach for it. The best I can do is keep a few chooks for eggs. I had a friend up here who I have known for about twenty years who's been up here for about 16 years and has very militant attitudes about people who get their meat prepackaged in supermarkets. His attitude is that it is disrespectful to animals to have someone else kill them for you under possibly brutal conditions. Also the conditions under which they have been raised are probably not great either.

He keeps rabbits, pigs, chickens, ducks, sheep and geese and the ones he eats he slaughters and butchers himself. I've watched him do it, and I could probably get used to it, but I actually have no desire to do it, and even an aversion to doing it. If meat wasn't available already butchered I think I'd probably become a vegetarian, but you never know I guess. I think the way he keeps the rabbits, for example, is appalling, although his other animals have it pretty good it seems.

what could've been achieved in, say, a decade took over a coupla centuries, in the process delaying the transition from mere civilizations to good civilizations. — TheMadFool

Not sure what you mean by "good civilizations" as opposed to "mere civilizations". If you have in mind our present state of "uber-civilization", this was achieved as quickly as it has been due to, as @Wayfarer mentioned, the "boon' of fossil fuels. I don't think inertia has been all that much of a problem when, as circumstances have allowed, it comes to transitioning to greater prosperity, comfort and convenience; I'm not convinced that many of us resist that kind of change. It's change in the other direction that causes us to dig our heels in, I would say.

I don't think it's predominately greed that is the problem at all. Most of us are not that greedy; what we are is addicted to our present prosperous, comfortable lifestyles (at least most of us are who have such lifestyles and are also the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions it seems).

It seems the majority just won't vote for any government that would seek to diminish comfort, convenience and prosperity; it's inertia, not greed, that is the major problem, as I see it. And as @Bitter Crank mentioned the transition from a fossil fuel based economy to an economy based on sustainable energy is an enormous, seemingly almost insurmountable problem, just as are reduction of the human population, making the transition to an economics of de-growth, and giving up the multiple evils of industrial farming practices which are destroying soils everywhere and fish-farming and general over-fishing which is degrading the oceans.

Could we not have clean air, clean water, highly complex and extensive biodiversity, "wilderness", open space, etc? Can't we have our cake and eat it too? — James Riley

The problem is that would take a drastic reduction of human population. By one estimation earth cannot sustain a human population of more than 200,000,000 using organic farming techniques, not to mention returning to hunter gatherer life. Who knows what the real number is? But it seems obvious that it's much, much less than the present population.

So, the problem is how to effect such a reduction ourselves when the whole question seems to be taboo to most people. Nature may do it for us, or we may do it to ourselves in some unthinkable way, but neither of those are alternatives that many people would wish for.

That interesting! I hadn't heard of that.

From Wiki:

The site's original excavator, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, described it as the "world's first temple": a sanctuary used by groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers from a wide area, with few or no permanent inhabitants. Other archaeologists challenged this interpretation, arguing that the evidence for a lack of agriculture and a resident population was far from conclusive. Recent research has also led the current excavators of Göbekli Tepe to revise or abandon many of the conclusions underpinning Schmidt's interpretation.

The above does seem to suggest that the points of controversy are concerning whether there were no or few permanent inhabitants and no agriculture, and whether there were many permanent inhabitants and agriculture. Apparently the site is far from any known sources of water, which if true would seem to make both agriculture and any permanent population unlikely.

But perhaps, to reference the other thread you addressed me in, as @Olivier5 would have it there is simply no fact of the matter as to whether there was agriculture and a permanent population or not. :wink:

2 is what you arrive at when you add 1 and 1. It is the simplest definition of 2 that I know of. — Olivier5

It's also what you arrive at when you add -1 and 3, -2 and 4, half plus half plus half plus half and so on, but I agree it is the most basic and concrete, so

You might say it is the primary instance of 2, or something like that, I suppose. — Janus

I suppose I could have said that 1+1=2 is the empirical instance of 2, because if we have two objects in front us of we can easily see that, taken together, the single objects are two.

We're going around in circles. The only real fact here -- the way I understand the word -- is about your ignorance of Leonardo's sexual orientation. — Olivier5

It's not my ignorance; no one knows what Leonardo's sexual orientation was. I believe there is a fact of the matter, though, whereas you don't; so we do disagree, and quite profoundly, despite your earlier denials.

I do indeed restrict the meaning of 'fact' to statements known to be true. I believe using it for pretty much anything out there ("actualities") is simply improper. — Olivier5

Yes, I was already aware that you don't acknowledge the synonymy of 'fact' with 'actuality' despite its being as common a usage as the other.

It doesn't bother me that you rule out that usage despite that I cannot see any good reason for it; but at least now it must have become clear to you that we disagree.

how could most of the vulnerable be already dead? — Janus


If the vulnerable constituted 3% of the population, of course. Is there something you're having trouble with in that equation? — Isaac

If only 3% of the population have so far been infected and out of that 3% around 2% (the vulnerable) have died then how could it possibly be the case that most of the vulnerable are already dead? If the vulnerable are about 2% of the total population and only about 3% of the total population have been infected then we could expect perhaps 33 times the current death toll if we let it rip. And that doesn't account for the possibility that more virulent strains might arise.

Not exactly. There are exceptions. — I like sushi

Examples?

Yes, I can see a valid distinction there. Judging from some studies of contemporary hunter gatherer communities they are more civilized than we are.

That's funny...and yet not; now I'm conflicted. :groan: :yikes: :scream:

I love dogs, have two myself, and try to impose my will on them as little as possible.

I wanted to start with quite a controversial argument I imagine which is to suggest that the discovery of agriculture is one of civilisation’s biggest mistakes. — David S

Since agriculture would seem to be a necessary condition for civilization, I can't see how it could be one of civilization's mistakes. So, in the interests of charitability I'll take the qeustion to be whether it was one of humankind's biggest mistakes. And then I'll say that question cannot be answered.because we really don't know what it would be like to live as hunter/gatherers. I suspect it would be a very fulfilling way to live, but who knows?

If you're in close contact with anyone who has a chronic condition, you should assume that you're a carrier even if both of you have been vaccinated.

It's a mistake to spread the rumor that vaccinated people can't transmit.

The main reason to be vaccinated is to potentially save your own life. — frank

I haven't said that vaccinated people can't transmit, though; I said that they are far less likely to transmit. If you are without co-morbidities and under 70, your chances of dying from covid, even if unvaccinated, are quite small apparently.

So, I see being vaccinated as playing your part in reducing, however minimally, the overall risk of infection, serious illness and death, and hopefully enabling our societies to get back to some reasonable semblance of normality, because the cycle of successive waves of infections and lockdowns cannot be sustained without great general suffering and increased rates of poverty, illness and death from causes other than covid.

I don't think it is unreasonable to think that, if the aforementioned cycles continue for sufficient time, it could lead to general economic and even civilizational, collapse. If that happened it may indeed be the best thing for the environment, for other species and ultimately for humanity itself, but we don't want to bring that about do we? Wouldn't we prefer to opt for trying to find an easier, more generally beneficial transition to reduced populations and sustainable living, no matter how unlikely such an outcome might seem?

How do you know you exist? Cite? — MondoR

I don't. I never said I did. See how that works? — James Riley

:rofl:

None of this addresses the issue of why someone should be vaccinated. As I pointed out, even the vaccinated can carry and spread the virus. So again, what is the point of vaccinating? — Harry Hindu

The point of getting vaccinated is that the vaccinated are far less likely to carry and spread the virus. Does it have to be all or nothing?

not least of which is the fact that most of the vulnerable are already dead. — Isaac

According to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ there have been a total of 231,809,797 cases of infection, which is about 3 percent of the current world population. So, how could most of the vulnerable be already dead?