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How Technology Might Avert an Apocalypse
First time accepted submitter deapbluesea writes "Matt Ridley recounts the many predictions of catastrophe that have been made by prominent figures in the past. 'The classic apocalypse has four horsemen, and our modern version follows that pattern, with the four riders being chemicals (DDT, CFCs, acid rain), diseases (bird flu, swine flu, SARS, AIDS, Ebola, mad cow disease), people (population, famine), and resources (oil, metals).' From over population, to pandemics, peak oil to climate change, Ridley provides examples of human innovation that have averted the disasters, real or imagined. He does not declare the doomsayers to be wrong, merely hyperbolic in their predictions. 'We hear a lot from those who think disaster is inexorable if not inevitable, and a lot from those who think it is all a hoax. We hardly ever allow the moderate "lukewarmers."' Given the current discussions on rich vs poor, conservative vs liberal, religious versus non-religious, maybe a little moderation should be in order. After all, there are a lot of examples of 'experts' who got it completely wrong in the past."
Sorry, but that's the oddest set of "Apocalypse" categories I've ever seen.
"Population"?
No war? No giant asteroid? No gamma ray pulse from a nearby star going nova?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
What about nature?
-Asteroids
-Mega Volcanoes
etc.
"After all, there are a lot of examples of 'experts' who got it completely wrong in the past."
That's a good example of survivor bias.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
[PSA] Ken Starks of HeliOS fame has 2-3 weeks left
This is one of those put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is situations. From his partner's blog at http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-is-where-we-are.html
Ken's cancer has just recently begun to spread to his right lymph node but his Oncologist has assured us that this is 80 percent curative if he gets the needed surgery in time.
Unfortunately, his 1100 dollar a month SSI disability disqualifies him for Medicaid care and the local county low-income insurance he was receiving. This leaves us with about 2 weeks to either raise enough money for at least the OR for the surgery (we are hopeful of finding a surgeon to do the work pro bono) or raise enough money for the entire procedure. We've spent hours upon hours researching and contacting the links some of you have provided but they are so limited in scope that 90 percent of them are not helpful at all.
We are looking at two weeks, maybe three before the cancer spreads past the point of surgery being an option. After that, we've been told just to make him as comfortable as possible until he passes. I'm not ready to accept that.
Stupid, this Medicare exclusion. More about the guy, by Steven Vaughan-Nichols of ZDnet fame:
+Ken Starks is a Linux and open-source supporter. He also runs a non-profit that's donated thousands of PCs to low-income households. Now, he needs help to fight cancer. For more on what's happening with him see:
http://thomasaknight.com/blog.php?id=71
https://plus.google.com/app/plus/mp/374/#~loop:view=activity&aid=z132y3njjzjei5iic04cjds4ztnpef1pjb0
Pitch in if you can.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Or at least, humans using that technology? From nuclear winter to idiocracy there is a whole range of apocalypses where technology have a major role.
Our technology, ingenuity, and savvy will avert disater at the last possible moment!
When in reality the only thing that will save us from a catastrophe of sufficient proportions is merely because the Earth is so large an diverse that it's unlikely to impact the entire planet in ways that would kill all of humanity?
Yeah, pretty ridiculous, we arent even near of apocalypse by population... War and weapon technology on the other hand...
There's no sufficiently nearby candidate star to kill us with a gamma ray pulse. Giant asteroid can also be ruled out.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
So because you can split things into 4 categories make them apocalyptic? So that's most management theory then, where it seems to be de rigeur to crowbar them into a "johari window".
The angels and devils and what not will come down and do their apocalyptic things, but what they won't expect is technology besting their powers. Oops, their plan got foiled...
Sorry, but that's the oddest set of "Apocalypse" categories I've ever seen.
"Population"?
No war? No giant asteroid? No gamma ray pulse from a nearby star going nova?
Oh, if you read the TFA you'll find that the 'usual suspects' are still there.
Nobody's particular original with this end-of-world stuff.
That's great, .....
It starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Oh, my, I must have been sleeping a lot lately.
To think that I believed that we were still in 2012...
Seriously, the author of these "articles" should disclose how to find his drug dealer. Must be some serious stuff.
Why can't
Seems poorly researched
In 1956, M. King Hubbert, a Shell geophysicist, forecast that gas production in the US would peak at about 14 trillion cubic feet per year sometime around 1970.
Oil production not gas
All these predictions failed to come true. Oil and gas production have continued to rise during the past 50 years.
Sorry, blatantly false. Try to find a US oil production graph showing this, LOL. Prediction dead accurate.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I was about to give up donating since you can't view a Plus link without a Plus account.
Then I tried the thomasknight link, a donate button was there.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's not like prayer will make a difference.
Yeah, pretty ridiculous, we arent even near of apocalypse by population... War and weapon technology on the other hand...
Depends on your time frame. 10 years no, 50 years, perhaps (note that the slope of the rise is dropping fast - whether it's fast enough remains to be seen).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If I recall correctly, the original Four Horsemen are War, Disease, Famine, and Civil Strife.
War is still very possible for two major reasons: Religions don't like democracy, and autocracies don't like democracy. As long as there are Religions with political power, war is possible. As long as there are nations in which the People are not the masters of their Government, war is possible.
Diseases pose a problem associated with the world's modern transportation system. Most scenarios indicate that if some horrid disease has any decent delay between "catching it" and "suffering from it", then it can spread too widely to be stopped, before it is noticed.
Famine is directly related to the total number of people, compared to (A) the total food production, and (B) the distribution system. Many people recognize that there are problems. Some people talk about ways to feed 9 billion people adequately. Almost no one talks about how to keep the population from growing even larger, and where the food will come from, to feed them.
Civil Strife happens whenever Authority takes a vacation from vigilance. A certain amount erupted in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina was on the way. A country that gets its Authority bogged down in some extraordinary event may unwittingly let the masses run riot. Recently there was a SlashDot article indicating that a surge in Civil Strife was being predicted for (about) the year 2020. Maybe it won't happen if Authority maintains vigilance. And maybe it will happen as a backlash to excess vigilance....
we hardly ever hear from the moderate voices who say the sun comes from somewhere inbetween. Sometimes halfway between the truth and bullshit is just as bullshitty.
If we could clone any plant and animal, most importantly humans, then we could create libraries of DNA samples and send
them to the far reaches of the Universe. The ships that would hold these DNA would have the facility to birth at least two
humans and enough fuel to land on any planet we could live on. It would have a smart computer (better than HAL; the upgrade
to HAL, IBM {just increment each letter}) that would detect when we've arrived near our new home. Only then would it use
the resources to birth a human to take over decision making.
We would send out hundreds of these ships; and of course have several orbit Earth (and Mars) in case it once again become
inhabitable.
The race of choice to initially birth would of course be African, since we're all descendants.
avert niburu
In the end we almost survived - but the solution had been copyrighted. The Establishment had opted to uphold the patents rather than avert our final demise and anger Emperor Troll. Though Emperor Troll was the last beast on Earth, there was nothing for him to live for and he soon followed. However, much of the planet's other species began to thrive once again. Dolphins eventually took to land and continued to evolve. Uninhibited by the manacles of a silly tongue, their communication was pure and intentions toward the stars, though never neglectful of home. Their endeavors were neither cannibal or competitive; they were of joy and free expression. They were not without their troubles, and many years passed before they ironed out the vestiges of a primitive past, but they grew and quickly so, as they did not hold each other down for the elevation of another. Reality was a goal and not a nightmare. To them, life was not a crime, nor was it something to be suffered, but something to embrace with the entirely of their potential. They eventually left Earth after some time. After traversing space for aeons, they conquered the limitation of will imposed by Universe. Form became optional and distance irrelevant. But from 'time' to 'time' they did visit Earth. Strangely, they never did bother to teach the history of humanity - it was self-implied. But they did build, leave and maintain a monument to Emperor Troll, which a strange and suspiciously human-like species would gaze at from great distance in wonder, but remained afraid to discuss.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
War (well, the sword) is definitely a classic.
First horseman: conqueror
Second horseman : war
Third horseman : the economic oppressor
Fourth horseman : Death (and Hell followed with him, killing with sword, famine, disease, beasts)
Neither of these statements are true.
If a gamma ray-burst occurred anywhere in our galaxy and was directed towards us, the radiation would have devastating effects. There have been extinction events on Earth whose cause is theorized to be this type of gamma ray-burst. However, the rate at which they occur per galaxy is anywhere from once per million years to once per one hundred thousand years. So the likelihood is still very small compared to more terrestrial threats.
Could you explain why you think a giant asteroid can be "ruled out"?
Unfortunately, he fails to mention the often forgotten fifth horseman, who brings about a decline in innovation. From what I see in the news today, he may already be here. Doom is certainly upon us!
Asteroid impact
Supervolcano
Nuclear war
Grey goo
Brain fever
and many more...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In the 1970 the available oil was not keeping up with consumption. Very cheap oil form the middle east was disrupted and we were not yet into deep water drilling, directional drilling was just taking hold. Furthermore car fuel efficiency had reached a historical low with many cars only getting 10 miles to each gallon. Because people knew on which side their bread was buttered, they worked to figure out how to extract more oil and use energy more efficiently. We would have been in trouble if very smart people treated these threats as "hyperbolic". They were real.
As far as pesticides, stating the threat is not real or limiting the threat to cancer is sheer hooliganism. The runoff of chemical pesticides, chemical in general, is a health and food risk. The only question is if that risk is greater than the social damage of doing nothing. For many chemicals, the answer is yes, the risk is greater. The main reason is that often we can achieve about the same results with what are probably safer alternatives. It is like a car. If one can achieve about the same results with a more efficient automobile, why not?
This is major fallacy, IMHO. Often these debates are set up as between hard working firms and hippie environmentalists. This si simply not true. The reality is that in the modern world these debates are between embedded corporate interests and free thinking entrepreneurs. The American car industry wants you to think if failed because of unions, but really it failed because it ignored people who pushing new technology and processes, while the Japan did not. The good news is that even though polemicist is still going to fight to keep the change from happening, corporations are increasingly looking to their balance sheets and realizing that branding is the past and innovative products are the future. They realize that public relations campaigns to convince people that scientist are merely fear mongers are not nearly as effecient as paying the scientists to develop the solutions. Imagine if the germans had just said that the lack of food was fear mongering and not put money into Habers work. We might not only be starving now, but Germany would not have been able to mount a campaign with substantially smaller forces than the rest of Europe.
Because I sense that this article is not so much anti technology but anti-government, let me reiterate. Currently corporations are not ignoring problems, but that is because the government structure is there to encourage development. Let me give one more example, the flat screen TV. The CRT puts out a great deal of radiation and wastes a great deal of energy. Through a series of regulations at various national levels, a standard was put in place to limit the radiation of the CRT. The ultimate solution was the LCD, but that was expensive. However, in a short time, due to interaction between government and corporate interests, almost everyone has moved away from the CRT to a more efficient and safe LCD. Does the CRT really cause damage? Who knows, but because all this was done under the table we are saved from the hooligans of conservatism and libertarians shouting from the rooftops that the LCD is a communist plot and anyone who wants an LCD hates America, or whatever.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
No.
-
Because giant asteroids aren't that hard to see anymore, and the facts of orbital dynamics tell us where we need to look. Nothing big is going to hit us in the next few decades, and given a few decades warning it would be trivial for us to modify an asteroid's orbit by the width of the earth.
Or, y'know, maybe applying human-generated myths to actual, present-day scientific observations isn't needed, as humans are so completely inconsequential it's laughable.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
We have one billion chronically hungry people today and it's going to get far far worse in the coming decades. Man is more populous than the rat and is consuming the earth like a swarm of locusts consuming a crop field.
War is actually reducing population which helps keep the world alive longer. Beyond killing civilians and destroying infrastructure that supports higher birthrates, the military (US, Israel, possibly also the UK and NATO) has been using depleted uranium in most of its modern wars, so the likelihood of carrying babies to term decreases. There is also a much greater chance of mutations that result in a non-viable birth or a short-lived child.
In recent times depleted uranium has been used in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Depleted uranium is also the plan for Iran. While there is a short term goal in Iran, i.e. to destroy the existing nuclear energy/material infrastructure, the long term goal is to destroy the Iranian population's ability to reproduce.
The median UN projection is for our population to top out just below 10 billion at around 2070, and then decline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#Human_population_growth_rate
it's in my head
Could you please explain how an extinction level asteroid impact can be ruled out? I believe we're getting to the stage where we might actually get some warning (a big improvement over the last few decades), but I don't believe we're in a position to divert one. Technically, yes, but politically, no chance.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
US oil production not only peaked in 1970, it's about half of what it was then. Texas (!) is a net oil importer. World oil production has been more or less flat since 2005, despite a price increase from $20/bbl to $100/bbl.
World natural gas production is up, and US natural gas production is way up. Not clear how long that can continue. Gas wells can be pumped out faster than oil wells, and production drops off rapidly towards the end. Oil wells slow down more gradually, ending up as "stripper wells", producing less than 10 bbl/day each. The US has about 400,000 of those; it adds up.
Lets face it, many of the apocalyptic scenarios are caused by technology. Especially before they get it all the little details figured out. X-rays are a great example. Do kids now a days even know about all the crazy stuff they did with X-rays before they figured out they can kill you? LOL! Science!
Here's another in a growing list of papers that demonstrate our illogical nature:
Anyone who solves this basic problem of human nature will, for sure, win an instant Nobel Prize, or, in the alternative, be assassinated before the news can spread.
It's true, of course, that there are many more apparent imminent catastrophes (AICs) than actual catastrophes, especially as we are still here to argue about it.
Some AICs arise from incomplete understanding, some from politically motivated woolly thinking and will go away if ignored. Some are real risks and we just get lucky. Others are partially mitigated by actions taken in response to the apparent threat (Y2K for instance). Some may be fully genuine threats averted by prompt action. Nuclear war between NATO and Warsaw pact in the 60s or 70s might be argued to fall into this category. CND and others successfully undermined the notion of "winnable nuclear war" and made sure that no Western politicians would risk nuclear war.
However, NONE OF THIS MEANS THAT THE NEXT ONE WILL NOT BE REAL. Probably it won't, but we can't just assume it isn't a real threat because the last one wasn't. We have to study each plausible threat, do our best to estimate the risk and where the risk appears significant, do what we can to mitigate it. The universe does not owe us continued existence, let alone continued civilization.
1) Monetary collapse
2) Energy return from hydrocarbons dropping so close to 1:1 that they are no longer a viable energy source (*Not* the strawman "peak oil" arguments).
3) Nuclear war
4) Any disaster which stops nuclear plant maintenance on a large scale (See reasons above).
Strictly speaking, 1 and 2 are "just" the collapse of the interdependent web of "just-in-time" supply chains, however, once gone, they may not be repairable in the lifetime of any living human. 3 is supply chain collapse plus infrastructure damage and radiation. 4 is a side effect of any of the first three reasons.
Cheers!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Or Niburu around Feb. 2013 (again). In fact, look up John Moore on YouTube here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crU9sM5QTUk&feature=related to see what I am talking about in the latter, as well as IRAS satellites and 10th planet discovered in 1983 etc. (here's a link on Apophis http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/apophis/ ). I don't know what to believe on any of it, since I tend to believe what I see first hand usually only (but by then, it'd be too late). It does make for interesting thought and hair-raising discussion at the very least, and something to prepare one's self for. Scares the hell out of me and I hope everyone's wrong on those things as there really would be no stopping them. Perhaps they explain blanks in our history every 2500 years or so, and things like Lemuria, Atlantis, and the sudden disappearance of the Sumerian civilization too. Food for thought.
Man is more populous than the rat ...
Do you actually have reliable data on this? If so, a lot of people who study such things might be very interested in how the numbers can be verified.
I recently ran across a typical example showing how little is known of rat populations, in the form of a list of "expert" estimates for New York City that ranged from 1/4 million to 100 million rats. This is a 400:1 range, and most actual experts on the topic will openly admit that the estimates aren't much more reliable than this. New York may be one of the best-studied cities.
The conventional estimate is that most human urban areas have on the order of 10 rats per human. This estimate has only one significant digit, though, and probably less than one digit for a lot of the world's cities. (Do you really think we know how many rats there are in Calcutta or Lagos or Mexico city or Shanghai or ...? ;-)
Of course, it's common for us humans to base our policies on numbers that were just made up by self-proclaimed experts, often for PR purposes.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
TornadoGuard
*shrugs* The angels / demons have always been hinted at as being purely human with strange / evil ideas. So, switch out the word angels and the word demon, and see if human can end our civilization with that level of technology. A few variants have picked up on the idea, albeit for different reasons: the Amish would be a good example.
It all goes back to the king / royalty / highway-man / raiders motif, which is where the 'locusts' come into play; they may simply be the great hordes of mankind who are infantile in their wants and understandings, demanding food without lifting a finger to create it, and using force on those who do when their hunger is great enough; see, farmers do not need a king, but a king and his 'enforcers' need farmers, as they need food; the original 'agreement' was that king and friends would show up, take a portion of the harvest, then leave the farmers in peace; over time, it evolved into the governments you see today.
Again, if you check the various {holy} books for half a dozen religions, they are waiting on a worldwide famine to hopefully kill off, or otherwise unmask, the people they're going to kill. And as has been pointed out in history if not once, then more than a dozen times, some powerful people want this to happen. They want to create enough chaos that it will force the hand of their god, force him / her to come back, so they can shore up their faith with actual evidence. I mean, if 50% of the world's population is crying out to the Almighty, surely he'd be moved to answer them, right?
I know it will simply be dismissed as a conspiracy theory, and it might be, however, I will state it for the record: if not through malignancy, than through criminal incompetence, the world-wide food supply is going to be mismanaged.
I am John Hurt.
A moderate, reasoned, logical approach to the problem from all sides rather than just a wild careening from one side to the other with either absolute disaster or nothing going to happen attitudes?
It'll never sell in the journals, papers, news, or theatres so it won't happen.
It needs desperately to happen but it plain won't.
The CRT puts out a great deal of radiation and wastes a great deal of energy. Through a series of regulations at various national levels, a standard was put in place to limit the radiation of the CRT. The ultimate solution was the LCD, but that was expensive. However, in a short time, due to interaction between government and corporate interests, almost everyone has moved away from the CRT to a more efficient and safe LCD. Does the CRT really cause damage? Who knows, but because all this was done under the table we are saved from the hooligans of conservatism and libertarians shouting from the rooftops that the LCD is a communist plot and anyone who wants an LCD hates America, or whatever.
I congratulate you to a well written troll post. However, there are some nutcases that really believe a CRT TV put out harmful radiation, you might want to make sure you don't get confused with them in any way.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/latest-questions/question/2417/
it's in my head
Except we've looked at and classified what, 2% of the asteroids in the system? I seem to recall reading an article someplace for an asteroid watchgroup saying we've only looked at something like 2% of the available sky. It's easy to miss a giant asteroid (say, 3-5 km in diameter) if you're not looking for it. Kinda like how so many motorcyclists get t-boned. The driver isn't looking for bikes, he's checking out that teenybopper chick overfilling that string bikini walking behind him in the rear view mirror.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
We all have images of the black plague and the dead in the streets in Europe. It is easy to understand and visualise. But we can not see the deaths and diseases that quickly spread through tourism on high speed air craft. We have no way to measure or account for diseases caused by such tourism. We also can not measure the deaths caused by exhausts from air craft or automobiles or ships.
We can not measure the deaths caused by poor quality food, cost of food, or variety of food driven by pressure of over population. Instead we see only the upside and idiotically believe that science will always yank our fat out of the fire. For all we know science and technology just might be the end of humanity. Yet some sad people somehow equate science and technology almost as if the were Christ on the cross providing salvation for all.
I hope it all works out but right now I see much of science and technology as dooming mankind more than helping. We are gambling that there is a point where science and technology suddenly shine with a bounty for all of humanity.
There are loads of "candidate" stars that could do the job. Fortunately it's an exceedingly rare event.
And a giant asteroid can absolutely not be ruled out.
One should note that both of the above extinction events have most likely already occurred on Earth at one time or another.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
NSA moves home base from Ft. Meade Maryland to Denver http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dbBkfIFSq3gJ:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php%3Faz%3Dview_all%26address%3D132x2408935%2B%22NSA%22+and+%22Denver%22&sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&gbv=1&ct=clnk
AS WELL as Augusta Ga. getting the NSA too (highest city on East coast US iirc).
CIA moves HQ from Langley Virgina to Denver http://imaginativeworlds.com/forum/showthread.php?12940-CIA-left-Langley-for-Denver
Jesse Ventura's "Denver Airport" documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9EpqBf0oCY
All/each moving to the "mile-high" city... why? Look up "US Naval Map" on GOOGLE -> http://theintelhub.com/2011/05/14/u-s-navy-map-showing-large-areas-of-u-s-submerged-happening-now/
Which Planet-X/Niburu is rumored to cause, damaging the New Madrid Fault flooding the central US, and the coasts will be gone.
Edgar Cayce (20th century very reknowned & respected psychic, an interesting man in & of himself, do look into he) even predicted the SAME map almost, decades before.
Then, there's the "mayan calendar" (which I think's b.s.), Revelations Chapter 8 Verse 10 iirc on "WormWood", Mother Shipton, & Nostradamus.
(want more?)
John Moore's show's had NSA, CIA ("lettered agencies" folks), gov't. officials + military men (high ranking officials) on it, as well as JPL & NASA folks.
I hope it's all b.s. & wrong. I really do. What a shame to wreck our civilization, for all of its faults (men themselves in collective secret societies jockeying for "power" since they have 2" penises imo).
Google Sky also has been BLOCKING the area Niburu is allegedly coming at us from (33 degree southern angle iirc, & google said "it's a bug in how the images stitch". Now, I am a coder, and that's bullshit. Why that image only?)
That's all in addition to my first post to you. Again - Food for thought. I am only scratching the surface of it from memory too. There's more if you dig.
Your LCD argument is just silly. People buy LCD TVs because they are lighter, they take up less space, and can provide a large high definition picture. Safety is irrelevant because CRTs were never found to be unsafe when properly produced and shielded. LCDs are not a gift from government, nor was government a major part of the reason we all switched to LCDs.
The rest of your post may or may not be correct. We certainly need to be able to compromise between zero government and totalitarianism. It would be good if facts and legitimate cost/benefit analysis were used to find the balance rather than doomsday prophesies and anti-corporate bigotry. It would also be good if environmentalists would put humans first and animals, plants, and aesthetics a distant second. Then we could have productive conversations and make progress toward finding the best balance.
The word apocalypse comes from apo kalipto in greek meaning un-covering and revelation.
Personally I am looking very much forward to that!!
Just maybe the "apocalypse" around the corner everybody fears so much, is not as much a
disaster to us as it is a catastrophe for those who lord over us. An aware and knowing
population that pursues its life-goals in self -determination would spell an immediate end to
our rulers, regardless whether they appear to us in the guises of the kings and queens
of old or modern day banksters and their prime ministers, presidents etc. of today.
Certain calamities would surely come about, it would not be beyond them to start WWIII
to bomb us back into ignorance, so that is perhaps where the upheaval component comes
in with regards to the apocalypse. However that may be, an uncovering and a revelation
should always be welcome to us and not to be feared, and maybe steps can be taking to
migitate the calamities.
Eh? There isn't much space to house people barring some new archology concept, or conventional housing buildings, but with actual police protection so one doesn't step out of their doorway into gang crossfire.
We have all seen Calhun's rat population experiment, and how the rats annihilated each other to a one, with "princes".
Look at our culture, be it Justin Beiber, and say this self-destruction cycle isn't happening.
Malthus can be delayed, but he can never be denied.
Only persons who is dogmatically attached to CRT is going to say that there is categorically not danger. There is categorically no danger to a mercury thermometer but we don't use those anymore.
There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT! (and technology cures what ails ya)
People buy LCD TVs because they are lighter, they take up less space, and can provide a large high definition picture.
LOL they only buy them to show off how much money they have, or how trendy in general. Also high def TVs were CRT in the old days when HD was new.
Ask your average goofball how much more money they'd pay, or how excited they'd be for a 10% lighter TV and they'd be all WTF who cares. On the other hand, if you offered them a free $5000 TV solely so they could brag to their future dating partner / neighbor / the guys at work how they have a $5000 TV and they'll faint with excitement.
As my CRTs have died I have replaced them with LCDs. Clearer picture, but horrifically bad color rendition and simply pitiful black levels. CRTs suck too. They both suck about as much, although in completely different ways.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The reference was "Andy Karam, adjunct professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology."
(I challenge the OP, if that's not you, to supply one single scientific reference to "a great deal of radiation" where radiation would be of the harmful non visible light kind)
Also, since I'm Swedish, I think you might be confusing the private organisation TCO (which is a workers union) with our government. See http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCO-m%C3%A4rkning
The non-disease "monitor-sickness" was one of the motivations behind the original certification, and in contrast to what you wrote is not at all recognized by my government, and has no scientific basis:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/El%C3%B6verk%C3%A4nslighet#Bildsk.C3.A4rmsjuka
it's in my head
At the last place I worked, a silicon valley company, we replaced virtually all of the CRTs with LCDs within one year's time. The CEO decided that the savings from the lower electrical consumption would quickly pay back the initial outlay. Radiation concerns, real or imagined, had nothing to do with the decision.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
I recall an experiment that was done about 40 years ago, I think in NYC. It involved a typical dilapidated tenement building that (I think) was due to be torn down. First the scientists interviewed the tenants, who were about to leave. Then they did their own survey, to determine how many rats were seen. Then (somehow?) they isolated the building and killed all the rats, and counted them. The result was that for every rat reported to have been seen, there were ten actual rats. If that is a reasonable ratio (and I think it is), then take the number of rats that the typical New Yorker sees in a year - let's say six, just to put a number on it - there are ten times that many. Human population of NYC is 8.5 million, so multiply by 60 to get 510 imllion rats. I wouldn't be surprised if that was close (1/2 order of magnitude) to the actual number.
Yes, it's not good science to extrapolate from one old study on one building to the much different environs of an entire city, my memory is vague so I probably have everything wrong (except the 10:1 - I'm sure of that), etc., etc. But it's a reasonable hypothetical number to use as a starting point.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
There is also the possibility that a larger object could enter the Solar System from outside it which is currently far now, but will eventually pass close to Earth. Very long period comets from the Oort Cloud might also be on the way to the inner solar system.
Still, as long as there are people checking, we should have some notice of an object incoming well before it happens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_Law_of_Headlines
Where's the question mark?
People who go through life experiencing a constant feeling of impending doom that does not dissapate when the claimed causes are shown not to be valid need access to a therapist to about their childhood, not access to public policy.
We're safe from the reasonably round orbit asteroids. It's the eccentric orbits and the recent Jupiter/Mars catapults that should worry us.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I've done some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and found that, using a VERY broad brush and some simple energy throughput and urban habitat analysis, the Earth could support one trillion people. Life would not be anything like it is now, of course, but the folks who grew up in that world would accept it as what it is. For example, they would probably consider the raising of animals for food as ridiculously barbaric and unsanitary, unlike their pure algae-based rations. One trillion people is about 150 times as many people as we have now. The mean population density, based on our total land area (without even expanding onto and under the oceans) would only be about twice the present density of Bangladesh, or Los Angeles County. A simple way to view this would be to just multiply the population of any given area by 150, by growing both up and out. The Boston-NYC-Virginia metroplex would probably be about the same size but comprised of one 100-story structure after another, and you could probably walk from one city to the other without ever going to ground level.
Many science fiction stories have contemplated huge, high density urban complexes, even ones as large as entire planets (one example would be Trantor, the Imperial capital in Asimov's Foundation series. But to my knowledge nobody has really stuck a number on it, with the idea of making such a place sustainable (in the sense of "everybody doesn't die of starvation, disease or lack of oxygen in a few years".
It's also worth considering that such a density would not be as high as any of various space habitats proposed over the last 50 years, where it is assumed that humans manage to maintain themselves indefinitely in a strongly restricted volume.
Since many parts of the land area are not really conducive to building living space on them, there is also the continental shelf and floating cities, anchored to sea mounts. Other analysts have shown that the total area of such places is greater than the present land mass, so we could possibly double the area we presently contemplate as 'places to live'. (You could put the equivalent of an entire North and South America in the middle of the Pacific, and (given some daunting engineering challenges) it would fit rather nicely. That could be used for food growing and/or living habitat.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Again, if you check the various {holy} books for half a dozen religions, they are waiting on a worldwide famine to hopefully kill off, or otherwise unmask, the people they're going to kill. And as has been pointed out in history if not once, then more than a dozen times, some powerful people want this to happen. They want to create enough chaos that it will force the hand of their god, force him / her to come back, so they can shore up their faith with actual evidence. I mean, if 50% of the world's population is crying out to the Almighty, surely he'd be moved to answer them, right?
Reminds me of "Rainbow Six".
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
So what does IT have to do with it? The virtue of the geek? :)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
I don't know how you could argue that LCDs are only popular because they are "trendy".
If people wanted to simply be conspicuous consumers, all they needed to do was buy gold plated toilets. You have an LCD TV because it grants you an advantage. It may well not be economical to own a 50" TV, but if you were going to buy a 50" TV, it is probably one of the most economical ways to go about it. I think you are confusing the trend to buy 50" TVs with the development of the LCD. Buying a TV that big may well be trendy, but the underlying technology behind it is an advance.
I used to use a 22" CRT on my desk. It took up half the desk and weighed a ton. Now I have a 24" LCD and it takes up less than 10% of the desk and weighs much, much less. I have yet to complain about the color, but I suppose I am not an artist or someone who would care. I don't know many people who really think it is to a point where it makes that much of a difference.
10% lighter??? I can barely lift my old 19" CRT.
yet I can pick up and move by myself a 55"LCD tv ( the only inconvenience here is the unwieldy size)
try 50-90% lighter.
not as good picture though.
also a 50" tv is less than a good PC these days, so it isn't about the money. My loungeroom would barely fit if I had a 55" CRT where the tv is. I'm sorry the whole thing with LCD is convenience. Lighter, smaller, adequate picture. Less power is just a bonus that makes.us feel better.
We have one billion chronically hungry people today and it's going to get far far worse in the coming decades. Man is more populous than the rat and is consuming the earth like a swarm of locusts consuming a crop field.
Your first sentence does not follow for your second.
There is more then enough food in the world today to feed the entire human race, plus some extra ones. Instead, most of it is wasted - not overconsumed - but wasted, because it's not possible to distribute it in an effective way.
Population crises are never going to be a problem because we straight up don't have to feed all the people in the world. We don't now, and that's not going to change in the forseeable future. And, it's not like starving people are able to swim across oceans or defeat a modern army, so the wealthy nations aren't going to be overwhelmed by the poor.
Additionally, let's suppose we did decide to feed everyone - which is a difficult endeavor. The infrastructure and education you need to make that a viable long term solution, empirically seems to have the side-effect of reducing population growth - if you succeed in preventing famine in an effective way, and start teaching farmers and educating women and children, then in every single place it's been tried, population growth levels off and then declines.
Actually politically we probably could do it. If NASA and astronomers from around the world were sure it was a problem, then I suspect it would get the right attention (money) if it was all anyone ever talked about, and we were talking detailed trajectories and planning.
The real problem is no one wants to fund observation - though fortunately the enterprise of asteroid mining is probably going to solve that to everyone's satisfaction.
Or not, per my subject line: Sure, I hope the debunk's right man as I said earlier - nobody sane wants niburu/planet x to go down (of course, one can look at both niburu AND the debunk as misinformation).
A "classic" the "powers that be" use? Misdirection type prestidigitation & MISINFORMATION... can go either way, in favor of this, or against it.
Which is the WHY of why I said "I am not sure of any of this" or whatever I said in my earlier post(s), I believe my initial one in fact, along those very lines... it's wat life's taught me!
(I.E.-> I believe 1/2 of what I see, almost none of what I hear-read), but, seeing & believing (chem trail holographs, look THAT up, could "fake it"... this IS the problem out there today - info. overload, & naysayers + contrary opinions etc./et al)).
The ONLY way to know something? Dive in, research it yourself... which is what I like about John Moore... he says that, right off, & doesn't mind IF he ends up wrong (like myself, he says he hopes he is & his sources are) with egg on his puss!
If people wanted to simply be conspicuous consumers, all they needed to do was buy gold plated toilets.
LOL that doesn't even make sense. I know this is slashdot, but which line is more likely to work:
"Hey baby lets go back to my place and watch a movie on my new $3000 TV"
or
"Hey baby lets go back to my place and you can take a dump in my gold plated toilet"
On /. I suppose a pickup line would be more like "I just got a new $600 graphics card, wanna play Dayz on it?" Or whatever. It has a much better chance of working than a gold plated crapper anyway.
Also, toward the peak of the recent ongoing housing bubble, and the stylistic overhang, overboard styling of bathrooms (and kitchens, etc) was, in fact, a very popular way to prove you can waste borrowed money, or something like that.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
As population increases it increases our vulnerability to the many causes of crop failures. But improved transportation works the other way.
War is anti-apocalyptic. Small-event wars are scratch-offs of a few of Gaea's predominant vermin. Large-event wars are like flea-bombings or dustings of rashy areas, they kill more and provide relief, so the rash may heal and Gaea may postpone when her human vermin wear her down so she can't support her vermin, when will come apocalypse.
Apocalypsae need not be sudden. They only must be thorough. Famines, for example, may kill over years, with pestilence assisting as the vermin's resistances weaken.
can't we just air bomb them with condoms and day after pills??? with instructions.... god this world is so screwed up i just want to go hide in a hole.
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP! "No limitations, no boundaries, there is no reason for them."
Is Technology building a solidly foundationed apocalypse-stopping fortress, or is it cantilevering, building us a chemically-dependent shelf, extending further, becoming heavier, inevitably to exceed the laws of physics, when it must shear and the whole cantilever crash down bringing us apocalypse, where, without the cement of technology making our cantilevering possible, a series of small breakages and collapses, small rock-falls and local avalanches would have relieved stresses in survivable, non-apocalyptic, adjustments?
Perhaps it's humans and their "technology" that have caused these plagues in the first place...
You must understand and read what I wrote. I am not sure what to believe. I even said it again here http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3058445&cid=41048029 but knocking Edgar Cayce isn't that smart (look into him). Believe me - I take psychics and even prophecies less seriously than I do the other data I noted. You may want to read what I wrote others here to understand my confusion (and i do NOT want it to happen either) -> http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3058445&cid=41048767 Trust me on that. Lots of skeptics on /., I use them (mainly for computer related data, doing it today in fact, lol). Thanks for your replies/input-output to me.
interesting. they don't seem to say why it will start declining. perhaps because we will be over-populated at that time?
Your first sentence does not follow for your second.
that would be the difference between first and second, wouldn't it?
you seem to say that we will never over-populate because we simply can't feed that many people. some would say that an inability to feed a population is, in fact, a hallmark of over-population. over-population certainly isn't about the number of people you can squeeze into a certain area. it is about what is sustainable.
the GRB strong enough to affect life on earth occur about every 5 million years (see wikipedia article & its sources). no point in worrying about them, nothing to be done
the problem is that you describe a world that is totally dependent on the actions of man to 'keep turning'. algae-based rations? who wants to live in that world? i certainly don't. i'd much rather kill you and a bunch of people like you to make plenty for the rest of us :)
we amateur astromomers would notice an extra earth-sized planet in the solar system, trust me. it would perturb inner planet orbits. there is no such thing.
As for Apophis, the pass of 9 January 2013 will tell us if future passes pose danger to earth, already the probability of the 2029 pass going through an imaginary "keyhole" area in space to ensure a 2036 collision is very, very small.
and some say the sun does not rise at all, but burns 24/7 and the world merely spins like a top and revolves around it... Don't believe them, it's bullshit, the sun always rises in the east, just check it out yourself...
As people (particularly females) become more educated, they have more kids. The industrialized nations all have native populations that are decreasing. Only the third world is still increasing in population and that's slowing down too.
Fewer kids. Whoops.
No, there are currently no stars close enough to us that are also large enough and late enough in their lives to endanger us with a gamma ray pulse.
"the problem is that you describe a world that is totally dependent on the actions of man to 'keep turning'. "
And you don't think that's the way it is now? Where do you think your power, food, fuel, and water come from today? Elves?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
You meant less kids.
I am surprised there has been no mention of Nassim Taleb's book, The Black Swan in all the preceding comments here or in the TFA and it's user comments. I would highly recommend it for anyone pondering this topic.
Use technology to trigger your own apocalypse. The odds of two apocalypses striking this planet are vanishingly small.
Have gnu, will travel.
How can you idiots not realize that global warming is going to kill everyone within the next six months? The only way to stop it is to do whatever we are told.
"The classic apocalypse has four horsemen"
Why does everything need to be tainted with this religious crap?
Read your horoscope like normal people will ya. Sheesh!
But I get to be the second horseman, you insensitive clod!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
your post and your sig are amusingly at odds with each other :)
i see a problem with that assumption where if you put that many rats in that much space with 8.5 million they will be very very visible. the subways are huge, but not that huge.
a derelict building implies a low occupancy. also people spend far more waking time outside their apartments than inside them.
but you did point out the possible error in extrapolating that one case, so whatevs.
I think the date of the end of this world is set in stone, but I do that our actions obviously play into the quality of life that we have here. Obviously, if you slam into a tree going 90 mph, you're at least going to break a bone or two in most cases. It's important to advance medical technology, but it's true that with anything there are ethical implications. Like the article where 29% of medical device failure is caused by software problems. Is it ethical, knowing that a pacemaker could get hacked, to regulate it over the same networks our browsers crawl? Wouldn't it be smarter to have those networks on a more strict protocol on separate towers? Anyway, I feel as though humanity as a whole was destined to overall destroy itself both by things we do to the ecosystem and to ourselves. Humanity as a whole is insane. "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do" didn't merely apply to Jesus thinking, "they really shouldn't be beating me". I think it had to do with the fact that people in general don't understand the full implications of what they do and say, nor do I think that I know every reaction to everything that I've ever done. Thus is life, sadly. It'd be wise to use smarted technologies for sure.
I've heard that every man woman and child could fit in the state of Rhode Island for quite some time now. I don't think over population is the root of what is destroying our society, but personally, I look up to any man or woman who chooses to be celebate for the rest of their lifetime because of the realization that even though I find Jane's Addiction to be out there. "Sex is violent" is a line I'll never forget because no matter how you look at it, it has to do with dominance, even when mutual gratification and reproduction is the goal. I honestly hope to marry one day, but facing the problems that our society faces now, it may not be wise to procreate. And there are obvious health risks involved in homosexuality, no matter how respectable a homosexual may try to be in what they do behind closed curtains. This is why if I were in a position, like being a minister, I would not marry a homosexual couple because I respect them enough to tell them the dangers of what they are doing to each other, rather than saying, "yea, just go do your thing. Ain't bothering me none." I wouldn't go as far to say kill them because if you read the scripture about homosexuality in Romans it goes on to say not to kill them or judge them because you may be found worthy of death as well. If it came down to nazi-ism over personal choices, it would end with most people dying because they'd done something someone else found to be horrible.
There isn't a rock big enough to do the job near enough to worry about. We have decades before anything large enough but too far away becomes a threat, and our technology already suffices to deflect the largest rocks out there, so we'll just be advancing technology that will make the job cheaper between now and then.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
A giant asteroid can be ruled out because we haven't seen it. Unless you're worrying about invisible giant asteroids that don't perturb gravity, we're in good shape.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I suppose the reason for that is the population size. People in smaller groups tend to behave more amicable towards each other. And amicability is necessary for democracy to work for the good of the whole. Though this does not hold true for Athens does it? Standard of living or technology may be the deciding factor within the subset of small population size. With life satisfaction comes complacency, a political stabilization.
Given that, it would take smallish groups of people with similar interests and a relatively high standard of living to keep a democratic system in a stable state. Sounds like common sense to me.
Where to logically go from there? Well that would mean the EU, US, and UN are caustic to democracy, but not their member states.
Seems about right.
In my opinion, religion and politics is like mass hypnosis. In a hierarchical pyramid, people who control religion & politics sit at top. It's a powerful position to be in. The parasites at the top need more & more population to enjoy their status.
Someone above cited UN predicts 10 billion by 2070. So what? We wait till we reach 10 billion? If we have shortage of population, it can easily be grown but reducing population is problematic & ugly.
sustainable for whom? if we're talking pure (rather than the selfish kind I prefer) environmentalism, then overpopulation is when the biosphere can't support it.
if we define it as being unable to feed ourselves, then as part of a larger biosphere, it'll tend to self-regulate into a sustainable situation (ie population will drop until we can feed ourselves). one could argue that it's short term unsustainable but sustainable in the long (but not too pretty) term.
The problem isn't the people so much as the conditions. You pack poor folks like rats and diseases have a perfect breeding ground. You have serious sanitation, health care, and potable drinking water problems compounded by humans simply being packed too tightly into too small a space and get ready for the nasty bugs. Hell look at how many drugs end up in the rivers thanks to sewage being filled with them which also helps the bugs by breeding resistance which again made worse by too many in too small a space.
It might be different if you were putting them into clean skyscrapers or some other form of affordable safe clean housing but as we see all over the third world and sadly more and more in the first world what you get is shanty towns with all of the above problems and disease carrying bugs like mosquitoes, rats, fleas, roaches, we could easily have a drug resistant plague or superflu come out of one of those and with worldwide travel it'd spread like wildfire.
This is of course not figuring in the risk of some crazy terrorist group or nation state actually cooking up a nasty bug for a weapon, or a nice long war in an overpopulated region accelerating the squalor and leaving lots of wounded open to infection. 1917 flu anyone?
Not saying any of this is 100% guaranteed to happen, just pointing out as the numbers get higher so too does the risk. After all its not the people in the nice places having 8 to 10 kids, its those living in hellholes without access to birth control and who need as many hands for manual labor as possible and to insure some live without having access to decent medical care.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Your opinion is not supported by data.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
it's in my head
".. After all, there are a lot of examples of 'experts' who got it completely wrong in the past."
Science textbooks show science as a steady progression, one discovery building on another.
It's NOT like that. In reality, it's like a large jigsaw with lots of people working on it, and pushing pieces into places that often don't quite fit. Every so often, someone finds a matching piece which requires a whole section to be undone, and then all the people working on that section complain bitterly, and try to stop the others disassembling all their hard work.
A recent classic instance is Piltdown Man, which was accepted by the consensus of paleontologists between 1912 and 1940, and set back discoveries in this field considerably. But if you look in the Wiki entry you won't find that stressed. Instead, there's a line saying that, because creationists use Piltdown as an example of scientists being wrong, it's important to minimise that fact....
What a load of bollocks.
Casual googling yields 1.7M people dying from AIDS each year, with negligible (0.1M) deaths from Ebola, SARS and flus. And then alcohol alone kills 2.5M people every year...
Every end has half a stick.
Can we just be clear that Matt Ridley is not merely the author of "The Rational Optimist", as his Wired byline so coyly puts it. Matt Ridley is also the self-described economic liberal who demonstrated the marvellous worth of his particular brand of this political philosophy by chairing Northern Rock during the period leading up to its catastrophic collapse; a well-known climate change denier; and a believer in radical change who just also happens, unblushingly, to be the 5th Viscount Ridley.
At least when it happened at Overend and Gurney, the directors got put on trial, even if they were acquitted. Now people who are demonstrably incapable of running commercial organisations successfully have the effrontery to continue to spout their drivel in public. He should be spending his time selling off his personal assets to compensate the poor sods who lost out through NR, not wittering about optimism and technofixes.
I have to disagree. There have been several near misses in the last decade, city-killers which have passed inside the moon's orbit, and we only spotted them on the way out. Yes, we'd probably spot something big enough to cause a KT style event, but an asteroid doesn't have to be that big to pretty much end human civilization (or at least cause a several-millennia hiatus). And as to whether we'd be able to deflect one - well, lets say we get lucky and have two years to prepare. What do we do? A gravity tractor might work, but we don't have the heavy lift capability. A nuke will just splinter it and could make things worse. Attaching a solar sail might do the job, but the technology just isn't up to it yet. I really can't imagine a realistic scenario where (with our current capabilities) we could deflect a big asteroid. Remember that the US can't even put a man in space at the moment, and even going to the moon is considered a major financial and technical challenge.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
3-5km is not a giant. Also it is a long way from a ELE. Also this is *not* like motorcycles. We have machines looking for them, and they have a very distinct "signature".
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
You mean like a massless Giant asteroid! :D
If its big enough to be a close to something like a ELE its big enough to see. This is not holywood folks.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
The experts may not have been exactly right but there is one possability that has been over-looked for why this might be. People listened and did something to prevent each disaster, thus decreasing the disaster's impact. Peak Oil? Increase effieciency and find alternatives. Pandemic? Increase research on antibiotics. Climate change? Decrease CO2 emissions.
I've found that most predictions are predicated on the assumption of: "If things continue as they currently exist". They rarely do. It's the observer effect writ large.
"The man does not need the surgery, chemotherapy radiation one-two into an early grave but vitamins and nutrition. Start educating yourself about health and nutrition first before you come begging for wagon loads of money to pay for "treatment". This may not sound very sympathetic in your ears if you can't move your mind past the pink-ribbon Susan-Komen TM cancer industry programming, but it is from the viewpoint of someone who beat cancer with proper nutrition and avoiding those many many toxins they put in our food and drink."
Well, the AC got modded down to -1, plus disagreed with, but their certainly is a germ of truth in the comment. I won't agree 100% with it, though. I'd agree (based on what Dr. Fuhrman writes) that most cancer is preventable by good nutrition and lifestyle choices (especially lots more vegetables, vitamin D, iodine, fasting, avoiding refined carbs and food additives, etc.). However, once you have cancer, whether nutrition can cure it is pretty iffy. It depends on the exact nature of the cancer and other factors. Slow growing cancers are more likely to be amenable to cure or management by excellent nutrition (we are talking aggressive nutritional intervention here like Dr. Fuhrman specializes in, not just eating a few extra greens now and then). Fast growing cancers that are localized, like Steve Jobs had, are places where surgery etc. may make a lot of sense, but good nutrition may still be needed to prevent recurrences. In that sense, cancer like Steve Jobs had is not so much the *disease* but it is a *symptom* of root causes like sunlight deficiency disease (like from working indoors too much and not supplementing with vitamin D3), vegetable deficiency disease, iodine deficiency disease, toxic food excess disease, etc..
I'd still be very curious what diet style AC worked from. Certainly the Rave Diet, Dr. Fuhrman's work, Dr. Mercola's work, and many others suggest that an excellent diet does max a difference in dealing with cancer. The problem is, there is so much conflict-of-interest, group think, advertising pressure, and risk adverseness from malpractice worries in the medical community these days, that it is hard to find unbiased advice. Good nutritionally-aware doctors can be hard to find (and then hard to get appointments with), given the expense and academic qualifications requirements and limited number of slots of medical schools have created an artificial scarcity of good doctors (in part to keep their fees up).
Related:
"Doctors' woeful lack of training about nutrition dooms millions to early graves "
http://www.naturalnews.com/036702_doctors_nutrition_fatalities.html
"The largest source of funding for medical schools comes from drug companies and medical schools curricula are set by the American Medical Association (AMA). Is it any surprise that doctors are taught to treat patients primarily with drugs and surgery? Given the power of proper nutrition, doctors' inability to give informed nutrition advice surely dooms millions to early graves due to illnesses which might have been prevented or healed. It is a national health tragedy which begs to be corrected."
At the end of my comment linked below are lots of background health links that ultimately link to the science of why nutrition and lifestyle make a big difference in health outcomes:
http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823
I posted other stuff in various replies to an article on IBM's Watson's involvement in cancer treatment.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/09/12/2059243/ibms-watson-to-help-diagnose-treat-cancer
Here is one of those:
http://science
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If only it worked better on republicanism.
Given that apocalypse means revelation, I would think that technology would make revelations even more possible as time goes by. The big apocalypse/revelation would be the singularity.
Please see my own reply to the AC, disagreeing in part and agreeing in part:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3058445&cid=41052955
If you look into the science, you'll see there is plenty of evidence that things like cruciferous vegetables, vitamin D3, iodine, fasting, and some other things (including avoiding refined carbs and various toxins) can help prevent cancer, and in some cases even reverse it. But, it is indeed hit-and-miss once you have cancer -- prevention of cancer by such methods is much more reliable than cure, and it depends on the exact nature of the cancer. You can look at the evidence Dr. Joel Fuhrman has amassed in the book "Eat to Live" for a start. A starting point:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
"As reported by the U.S. government and Center for Disease Control (CDC), cancers of the colon, breast, prostate and lung are the top four deadliest cancers in the modern world. After billions of dollars devoted to researching drug treatments for cancer and minimal increases in life expectancy for those undergoing chemotherapy for most common cancers, many authorities such as the National Institute of Health and the American Cancer Society, have been issuing a stronger voice advocating more preventive measures to reduce cancer incidence. Diet has become a key element in the fight against cancer.
The most recent scientific advancement in the anti-cancer research is the identification of specific foods and food elements that offer powerful protection against cancer. These foods are essential for both prevention of cancer and also increased odds of survival after diagnosis. Harmful foods and supplements have also been identified, and avoiding or minimizing these is equally as important.
Though most people would prefer to take a pill and continue their eating habits, this will not provide the desired protection. Unrefined plant foods, with their plentiful anti-cancer compounds, must be eaten in abundance to flood the body's tissues with protective substances. Vegetables and fruits protect against all types of cancers if consumed in large enough quantities. Hundreds of scientific studies document this. The most prevalent cancers in our societies are plant-food-deficiency diseases. The benefits of lifestyle changes are proportional to the changes made. As we add more vegetable servings, we increase our phytochemical intake and leave less room in our diets for harmful foods, enhancing cancer protection even further. Let's review some of these research findings and then review what a powerful, anti-cancer diet will look like."
Or lots of studies here for vitamin D helping with both preventing cancer and improving outcomes:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/
But, as I said in that other comment, we really need both better diets and better interventions for the times when that is not enough. One place working towards "integrative therapy" for cancer:
http://www.healingcancer.info/ebook/andrew-weil
But there is so much conflict-of-interest in the medical profession, it can be hard to wade through it all as a stressed patient or family member or friend; here is a related book by a former oncologist:
"Money Driven Medicine -- Tests and Treatments That Don't Work."
http://cancercaremalaysia.com/2011/09/02/book-review-money-driven-medicine-%E2%80%93-chemotherapy-for-non-responsive-cancers-%E2%80%93-denying-reality/
"Medical oncologists are paid almost nothing for talking with patients and their families. Their income depends entirely on the number o
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Since the mantra of growth is fundamentaly unsustainable as only 0% is ustainable the system will ultimately attain equilibrium.
We have been growing in America since it's inception at a doubling rate every 20 years.
This is similar to worldwide growth of the last century, largely fueled by fossil fuels and the miracle of technolgy they allow.
Factor in weather instability, loss of fuel based fertilizers that created the green revolution and modern agricultural production that feeds the growing masses. Technology helped grow us into an unsupportable paradigm but will not grow us out.
Humans give themselves too much credit for problem solving. Nature, however, does and excellent job as she repeatedly has done for billions of years. Mathus was correct. All systems that are unsustainable collapse eventualy if you look at the historic and geologic record.
See here.... Even without the photo, interesting article. Yes I did read the article ;)
I've always said English was my second language. Had Romeo and Juliet been written in C, I might have understood it.
a somewhat optimistic study on population and agriculture. unfortunately not addressing water or growth. http://soils.usda.gov/use/worldsoils/papers/pop-support-paper.html
I honestly hope to marry one day, but facing the problems that our society faces now, it may not be wise to procreate.
I think it's a bit silly to look at it like that. Yes there are problems in the world, but most of it really doesn't have much effect on most people's day-to-day life. Society had its share of problems when I was born, but I'm certainly glad my mom didn't think it was unwise to have a kid in the middle of the cold war, the oil crisis, and a host of other societal issues.
And there are obvious health risks involved in homosexuality
Sorry, but what are these "obvious" risks that are apparently not so obvious to me. Are you talking about AIDS (you know, that "gay disease")?
some would say that an inability to feed a population is, in fact, a hallmark of over-population.
No, it's the unfortunate hallmark of politics getting in the way of humanitarian aid. We can send all the food we want, but if some government/warlord/terrorist/whatever is going to sieze the food and use it for their own benefit rather than allow it to be given to the hungry, I'm not sure I'd call that "over-population".
Sure. It'll be big enough to see. The problem is that nobody wants to fund the people interested in *looking*. The car analogy is a crosswalk on a blind corner. If you go through the trouble of making sure you've got someone to act as a spotter, the crosswalk can be safe. If not, you're going to end up with a bunch of dead pedestrians.
I would consider population to be the biggest chance of "Apocalypse". YES, POPULATION. Think Soy lent Green: The human population will consume EVERYTHING until we get a population crash. That means an apocalypse of all of our natal world, every cherished rainforest, undisturbed habitat, unique (delicate) species, and interconnected biodiversity.
To me, if we lose biodiversity, if we gentrify every cubic foot of land into farmland in the name of ever denser cities of people bordering on the line of life in a shoebox. what worse Apocalypse can you imagine?
People should thrive with adequate personal space, with enough resources to live interesting lives. If we allow populations to grow forever, space and resources will only be a luxury for the rich more so than it already is now.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
Correct me if I'm misunderstanding, but it appears that your math assumes none of the rats are seen by more than one person. And, somehow I find it difficult to believe that there are ~460 million rats that have not been seen.
Just another day in Paradise
All I can say is that, in the case cited, for every rat that someone said they saw, there were 10 rats in reality. Everything else extrapolates from that.
I will add some anecdotal evidence. Some time ago when I lived in a house in the woods, I heard but never saw mice. So I put out traps, first regular snap'em traps then live traps. I caught 22 mice in two nights - I was getting up about every 20 minutes at the sound of the traps going off. I think it was two families. Most of them were half-grown, probably on their first trip out. I put them all in a big garbage can that I had, and took them out into the woods and let them go - I figure I was giving them a fair chance (better than poisoning or broken necks), and also (since they came from the woods) putting them back in the environment that they normally lived in. I lived 1/2 mile from the next house, so they had to be at least nominally able to survive in the woods and if not, I was feeding the Great Horned owl that lived nearby, and the coyotes, and the hawks and eagles, etc. I learned later that in most states it's illegal to dump critters like that but in this case I think I might still have done so.
(Two of those I caught in live traps had gross evidence of being near-missed by the snap'em traps - ick.)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
"I think the date of the end of this world is set in stone..."
God has definitely a date on which he is going to end human existence at the level at which we have known it. People who have chosen not to believe in the creator God as revealed to us in the holy Bible have good reason to be uncertain and afraid. Because of Jesus, God is indeed willing and able to forgive us ignorant human beings, just for the asking.
The last book of the Bible, is the book of Revelation. This word was derived from the original Greek from which we have derived the word apocalypse. It simply means to reveal or uncover something. All throughout this holy book, the Bible, we have God writing history in advance. There are accurate descriptions of the scattering of the Jewish people throughout the nations and the gathering of them in the final days. The modern state of Israel was founded on May 14, 1948. It was predicted that this would happen. (Isaiah 66:8)
The next item of God's agenda that we shall see, is the destruction of Damascus. You can read about it in context in Isaiah 17. Damascus is one of the oldest cities on earth. It has never been destroyed, but it will be. The present civil war in Syria will eventually get Israel involved. The whole world will be incensed at Israel, to the point that ALL Jews will be cast out and repatriated to Israel.
Ezekiel 39:28 Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own land. I will leave NONE of them remaining among the nations anymore.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
I think the most popular theory going is to paint the surface to change the albedo.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Lies, damned lies, and statistics...ever heard of that saying? The problem with trying to predict the future with stats is that there are unpredictable events that throw a big ass monkey wrench into your stats. Do you think anyone in 1899 would have been able to predict 2 world wars and a hundred million plus dead or wounded? Hell would they have predicted WWII in 1925?
Wars, earthquakes, floods, all of these things can devastate a region for a decade or more and simply won't be predicted or fit into those little equations. And in all of the above you end up with the exact same conditions I predicted, too many people in bad health in too small a space. Ever hear of the 1917 superflu? Came about because of wounded in WWI in unsanitary battlefield conditions with weakened immune systems being a perfect breeding ground. Then the troops were shipped home and voila! Instaplague.
You don't even have to go third world, look at the conditions in the barrios and ghettos of any major city, we have too many people, too little access to preventive healthcare so they only go into an ER when they are half dead, rats, roaches, fleas, hell we've seen NYC have a bedbug infestation like it was the 1800s! In the end its not the people, its the conditions and as more and more of rural life is automated the people will have no choice but to crowd into megacities and there goes your equations.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
we have too many people
No - not according to available data. This is where you might want to take a moment to ponder what possible reasons you could have advocating genocide for no apparent reason.
it's in my head
Yes, population. From there stems a great deal of problems, most obviously resource depletion.
Have a listen to this. The Australian CSIRO is itself predicting major social and economic collapse within the next 50 years if we do not act on these things. This is nothing to do with climate change.
http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Multimedia/CSIROpod/Growth-Limits.aspx
There was also this presentation last year at the Institute of Policy Studies in New Zealand:
http://mdsweb.vuw.ac.nz/Mediasite/Viewer/?peid=0b5d458433d74b4d9605d143cdc64aa3
Examine slide #31. It says: "The world is tracking on the Limits to Growth 'business as usual' scenario - leads to ecological and economic collapse (possibly from 2020 onwards)". This is from an actual scientific paper from the CSIRO. It is not guesswork, hyperbole or quackery.
Show me where I advocated genocide? Citation? I said its the LIVING CONDITIONS and those can be improved if anyone would give a fuck. High speed trams that run throughout the city can alleviate the need for everyone to crowd into the city, smaller housing units with decent security can help with the overcrowding, clinics for the poor can help get them in before that bug turns them into a walking germ factory.
If you want to talk about genocide that is exactly what i think the 1% are creating the conditions for with their actions, sending jobs to the third world where they can turn huge tracks of farmland into toxic waste dumps (fully 20% of China's farmland is toxic and unfit for human consumption) while filling the air with toxins that weaken the immune systems and give cancer to the poor, and by packing the factories into toxic megacities they get poor packed in like rats hoping to earn enough to keep their families from starving. Its a recipe for disaster and the next superplague I have no doubt will begin in the third world and then spread through the crowded conditions of the ghettos and barrios.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Show me where I advocated genocide? Citation?
"we have too many people"
The rest of your post above seems to be just ill informed apocalyptic rantings with no basis in actual reality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
it's in my head
Look, it's not interesting, much less scientific to group all these things together and then treat them as a unit. They don't represent anything other than a set created by the author's imagination.
In fact we did almost destroy ourselves by ignoring then denying that CFCs were causing a hole in the ozone layer. If denialists had carried the day, enough UV radiation would be coming through the ozone to deconstruct the DNA of almost all life. The fact that we fought that fight against deniers and won is the only thing that made a difference - the alternatives to CFCs were always there ready for the "innovators" to put to use "saving" us.
You cannot throw a real and present danger - global warming and GHG emissions for which we have no sure, ready solution except changing our behaviour through the application of laws - in with likes of DDT and other things which were harmful, yes, bad ideas, yes but not truly apocalyptic in nature the way global warming is. And if you nevertheless DO throw them in together, you cannot draw conclusions about them en masse because in fact they are completely causally unrelated to each other. That's it.
What this idiot is saying is in effect "I have the same feeling about global warming as these other things gave me, and therefore they forma natural, causally linked group with similar outlooks and similar solutions. So who the fuck cares how it makes him feel and how is it relevant to the particular mechanics of the specific problem we now face?
This is folk wisdom. If folk wisdom had a solution for global warming, we would have heard about it by now.