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Placid Marmot posted:I'm sure that was fun to calculate, but it's entirely meaningless. Every bit as fun and every bit as meaningless as every other post on this site!  Placid Marmot posted:If the cost of importing water and any other essential substance to a location becomes greater than the productivity of that place, then people will leave or die. Population hasn't been tied to "productivity" for a long time. Resources go where people are, and people go where resources are already flowing, in a self-reinforcing cycle. That's why a farm town like Phoenix, Arizona became the sixth-most-populous, and one of the fastest-growing, cities in the US, despite being geographically isolated in the middle of a goddamn desert. It's why Damascus, which is also in a desert and sees barely 5in of annual precipitation, has been continuously inhabited for the last 5,000 years. It's why urbanization is such a powerful force now; industrialization and declining transit costs have made moving around resources vastly easier. Economic collapse due to water shortages would cause, in the short term, the mass-migration of yet more people into cities, and in the medium-term would increase the flow of resources into those cities as governments desperately try to support the population. (This is not to say that individual cities don't collapse anymore. See: Detroit. But they're the exception, not the rule.) One of the only reliable ways to cause a complete population collapse, even within cities, is sustained widespread violence—in other words, war. Which will probably happen, as many of you so eagerly keep predicting. Placid Marmot posted:The 600m^3 of water used per person is higher than necessary largely due to inefficient farming methods, so this number could easily be slashed by education and/or mandate, which is not to say that a water disaster is not approaching in India, with the atrocious state of their aquifers. I thought 600m^3 was high, too, but Japan's per capita is 714m^3, France's is 512m^3, and United States' is 1,583m^3. To be fair, the US is a major agricultural exporter, and it's among the top five producers for an astounding array of agricultural goods. Relative to its population, the US does a disproportionate amount of farming and has a correspondingly high water usage. But this suggests that making agriculture merely more efficient (as opposed to outright capping water usage) in India would result, not in less water being used, but more crops being grown.
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Jul 27, 2016 20:43
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Nice piece of fish posted:Indulging that line of thinking: What disease could possibly accomplish this? Even antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria couldn't cause that kind of die-off. You're talking bubonic plague levels of casualties, and those were under some very specific circumstances that aren't coming back. I'm assuming the universe still has surprises for us that we won't be expecting, but I'm certainly not anticipating some mega-plague to wipe out the human race. I was more just wondering if we did suddenly lob off that amount of population, if that alone would "fix" things for now. Obviously we're on a course that's going to continue for a while even if we stopped all human activity, but with a smaller population we'd have plenty of room to move to the places that will still be inhabitable I would think. That's all just fun to think about. Placid Marmot touched on population control not fixing the problems but being a part of the solution. I'd love if we (as a species, not just the USA) could somehow regulate it sooner rather than later but I know that's just not feasible.
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Jul 27, 2016 20:51
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I empathize with your emotion but can't offer much other than 'yup.'
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Jul 27, 2016 20:53
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I don't know if calling this thread "what is to be done" was deliberately a reference to Vladimir Lenin's well known pamphlet "What is to be Done?" or just a fortuitous coincidence, but I used to be all doom and gloom about climate change until I discovered the science of Marxism-Leninism and that the solution to climate change is the same as the solution to capitalism as a whole, its total abolition and replacement with communism. If you've reached the point of total despair about the future due to capitalism induced climate change look into Marxism-Leninism, there is no other solution tbqh, it is what is to be done.
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Jul 27, 2016 21:00
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G.C. Furr III posted:I don't know if calling this thread "what is to be done" was deliberately a reference to Vladimir Lenin's well known pamphlet "What is to be Done?" or just a fortuitous coincidence, but I used to be all doom and gloom about climate change until I discovered the science of Marxism-Leninism and that the solution to climate change is the same as the solution to capitalism as a whole, its total abolition and replacement with communism. We don't have time to wait for the global socialist revolution to take place, we need to adapt and mitigate within our existing economic systems. This isn't to say, delay your socialism, just that meanwhile we have to achieve out the best results within the power structures that exist. (I'd give this one an 8/10, far better than the usual btw. A good intro) Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 21:03
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G.C. Furr III posted:I don't know if calling this thread "what is to be done" was deliberately a reference to Vladimir Lenin's well known pamphlet "What is to be Done?" or just a fortuitous coincidence, but I used to be all doom and gloom about climate change until I discovered the science of Marxism-Leninism and that the solution to climate change is the same as the solution to capitalism as a whole, its total abolition and replacement with communism. We're well past Marxism-Leninism being a solution. We need Stalinist Terraforming.
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Jul 27, 2016 21:10
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G.C. Furr III posted:I don't know if calling this thread "what is to be done" was deliberately a reference to Vladimir Lenin's well known pamphlet "What is to be Done?" or just a fortuitous coincidence, but I used to be all doom and gloom about climate change until I discovered the science of Marxism-Leninism and that the solution to climate change is the same as the solution to capitalism as a whole, its total abolition and replacement with communism. I'm lefty as gently caress, but if I honestly believed that FULL SOCIALISM NOW was the only solution to climate change then I think I'd be way, way more doom 'n' gloom than I currently am. Because that's not happening. Not in our lifetimes, probably not ever. If we can't mitigate this within existing social and economic frameworks then we're going to be in for a world of hurt.
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Jul 27, 2016 21:11
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Paradoxish posted:Because that's not happening. Not in our lifetimes, probably not ever. as capitalism itself is what has caused the current AGW crisis/end of the world, then if the transition to communism doesn't occur then it really is the end - capitalism will see the whole world destroyed. There literally is no other solution - various measures within the capitalist might delay things but only with a society that is owned by everyone, where private ownership of agriculture and industry has been abolished can the human race actually hope to avert crisis. As an added bonus: no more wage slavery  Terraforming isn't actually our of the range of possibility once all the productive forces are actually directed for the benefit of all people under the control of all people, rather than Elon miusk destrying the world with a private initiative terraforming attempt. Same with the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels, proliferation of solar energy and, in the resources dedicated to research into solutions, I always think of the example of the still unequaled rapid industrialisation of the USSR during the 5 year plans as an example of how fast things can actually move when capitalist world destroyers arnt in charge. Climate change, just like everything else about capitlaism drives the proletariat to overtrow the old order, to revolution.
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Jul 27, 2016 21:30
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Ah yes, the industrialization of the USSR, known for the low emissions and limited environmental harm produced. But they were no true socialists.
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Jul 27, 2016 21:43
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G.C. Furr III posted:Climate change, just like everything else about capitlaism drives the proletariat to overtrow the old order, to revolution. Do you believe a global revolution that overthrows the capitalist order is likely to happen within the next, say, five years? Because if not, holding out hope for socialism as a solution is a non-starter.
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Jul 27, 2016 22:35
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Trabisnikof posted:Ah yes, the industrialization of the USSR, known for the low emissions and limited environmental harm produced. You're missing the point by overly focusing on the industrialisation part rather than the actual existing historical demonstration of the extreme rapidity of change when capitalism is no longer in charge
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Jul 27, 2016 22:36
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Curvature of Earth posted:Population hasn't been tied to "productivity" for a long time. Resources go where people are, and people go where resources are already flowing, in a self-reinforcing cycle. That's why a farm town like Phoenix, Arizona became the sixth-most-populous, and one of the fastest-growing, cities in the US, despite being geographically isolated in the middle of a goddamn desert. It's why Damascus, which is also in a desert and sees barely 5in of annual precipitation, has been continuously inhabited for the last 5,000 years. It's why urbanization is such a powerful force now; industrialization and declining transit costs have made moving around resources vastly easier. Economic collapse due to water shortages would cause, in the short term, the mass-migration of yet more people into cities, and in the medium-term would increase the flow of resources into those cities as governments desperately try to support the population. (This is not to say that individual cities don't collapse anymore. See: Detroit. But they're the exception, not the rule.) One of the only reliable ways to cause a complete population collapse, even within cities, is sustained widespread violence—in other words, war. Which will probably happen, as many of you so eagerly keep predicting. Phoenix generates more value than it costs to sustain itself, whether that value is in food or goods or services. What will happen if the cost of buying water, food, and other essentials becomes too expensive for residents to afford? They will leave. A year's water can never cost ten times the GDP/capita because at less than one times GDP/capita it becomes impossible for the average resident to survive. There may be some locations that are supported externally because of some non-economic value, but that certainly is not the case for the whole of India.
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Jul 27, 2016 22:38
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Paradoxish posted:Do you believe a global revolution that overthrows the capitalist order is likely to happen within the next, say, five years? Because if not, holding out hope for socialism as a solution is a non-starter. It could, if people such as yourself were to dedicate their lives to overthrowing the system that is killing us.
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Jul 27, 2016 22:38
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Placid Marmot posted:What will happen if the cost of buying water, food, and other essentials becomes too expensive for residents to afford? The government steps in to subsidize them. That was easy! What exactly do you think healthcare is? It's an "essential" and most people already can't afford it on their own. Strangely, rather than allowing population redistribution via death, governments pour billions into keeping economic deadweight like "children", "poor people", "cancer patients", "old people", and "the disabled" alive. Yet it never goes bankrupt (barring rank incompetence and deliberate sabotage by "fiscal" conservatives). Strange how that works. And per Modern Monetary Theory, provided a government maintains its sovereignty and has full control of its own currency, it literally can't go bankrupt. The only true limiters are the rate of inflation and physical resources.
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Jul 27, 2016 23:13
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TildeATH posted:That's cool that this happened to you last year but since then things have gotten even worse, Billy. That was like a decade ago... but yeah it was childish and I guess silly to say I was proud about that, but it was something I did try to do. I wish that the school district actually did bother teaching people about climate change then because even though it was a short time ago we are all adults and I see a bunch doing stupid poo poo like Rolling Coal and other crap that makes me facepalm. It wasn't something boastful just something I did and probably should have tried to be involved with then give up afterwards. Mozi posted:I empathize with your emotion but can't offer much other than 'yup.' Thats what I kind of figured, definitely going to take up some of the advice from the thread on things to do. It might be insignificant, but its a little better than just throwing your hands up and saying I quit which I guess I kind of did. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 23:49
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Curvature of Earth posted:The government steps in to subsidize them. That was easy! Subsidizing water for "A mere order of magnitude higher than their per capita GDP!" will NEVER happen, outside of a space mission. The government of a region - a city, a state or a country - can afford to subsidize old people, poor people and children because that region generates sufficient value to generate sufficient taxes and/or exports to do so. If it suddenly costs a year's average wage to provide water and/or food for each person (never mind an order of magnitude more) in the given region, then this subsidy is not only no longer going to be paid, but it will no longer be possible to pay it. A government cannot infinitely provide resources as you suggest, as energy and raw materials are required to do so, and most governments do not administer regions that contain sufficient energy and raw materials to support their needs (that is, they do not have sovereignty over the required resources), so must trade with other regions. However, trade with other regions is limited when a country prints money, as this devalues its currency, reducing its buying power, thus increasing the cost of everything that's imported. Some countries could sustain a degree of greatly excessive spending, but only until their oil/gold/diamonds run out. India is not going to build "19,000 Carlsbad-scale desalination plants", not only because your imaginary no-water scenario will not happen, but because India cannot support the cost of building and operating anything that costs more than a fraction of its GDP.
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Jul 28, 2016 02:32
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Placid Marmot posted:Subsidizing water for "A mere order of magnitude higher than their per capita GDP!" will NEVER happen, outside of a space mission. The government of a region - a city, a state or a country - can afford to subsidize old people, poor people and children because that region generates sufficient value to generate sufficient taxes and/or exports to do so. If it suddenly costs a year's average wage to provide water and/or food for each person (never mind an order of magnitude more) in the given region, then this subsidy is not only no longer going to be paid, but it will no longer be possible to pay it. I agree with you, largely because under sufficient stress even the most robust systems fail. But I do think you're underestimating how long it'll take for us to reach that tipping point—human inertia is very, very powerful, even in the face of obvious and ongoing disasters. And did you actually read my whole post? I already noted the limiters of government spending were inflation and physical resources. Thanks for reminding me of what's already contained in my post? FYI, I'm aware my scenario isn't going to happen, I made it over-the-top as a reaction to apocalyptic tone I was seeing in-thread. "A mere order of magnitude higher than their per capita GDP!" was obviously sarcasm. For what it's worth, there are already 62,500 power plants in the world as of 2012, or roughly one power plant for every 113,000 people alive at the time. Granted, they weren't all built at the same time, but in practice, very few working power plants are older than the 1950s. "Building large numbers of big expensive things vital to maintaining society's standard of living" is not an impossible task, but rather one so routine that nobody even thinks of it until it's the government starts doing it. Furthermore, global warming operates on the scale of decades, even centuries, so there is time to build up the infrastructure needed to survive over the span of 50 or 60 years. "Can we do what's necessary to survive?" is more a question of political will than physical resources or even economics. Edit: Fixed obvious typo. Curvature of Earth fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Jul 28, 2016 |
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Jul 28, 2016 03:22
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I think we will be mostly okay
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Jul 28, 2016 03:49
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Political will is the only thing that matters, and I honestly believe that anyone who thinks that there is a realistic way to prevent catastrophic climate change is a damned fool. It would take nothing short of a god-emperor of all humanity to enact the level of change required, it's just not going to happen. The changes needed are so massive and they need to be done so far in advance of actual catastrophe that there is no way to explain it to or convince the average person of what needs to be done.
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Jul 28, 2016 03:50
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Curvature of Earth posted:And did you actually read my whole post? I already noted the limiters of government spending were inflation and physical resources. Thanks for reminding me of what's already contained in my post? Yeah, I read your post, including where it said "Yet it never goes bankrupt (barring rank incompetence and deliberate sabotage by "fiscal" conservatives)", which is plain false due to inflation, which you acknowledged in the same paragraph to be limiting. You did not need to specify that physical resources were a limit, given that the subject of the discussion is limited physical resources. The tipping point for the whole of India may be far away -- though closer than the total disappearance of native water resources -- but the depopulation of regions of the Earth and the declines of empires due to resources costing more than their productivity has been occurring for thousands of years, is occurring now, and will continue in ever greater areas in the future. This is not a question of robust systems, but of systems that have demands that exceed sustainable magnitudes. Desalination plants will always have demands that far exceed sustainable levels for staple crop farmland, so, lacking an economically plausible source of water or adequate improvement of usage of existing water, the population in water-stressed areas and areas that depend on their food production will fall, whether through migration or death. If a region is suffering from water stress today or in ten years' time, it is not sufficient that "infrastructure will be built up over 50 or 60 years." "Can we what's necessary to survive?" is not actually a question at all, never mind a political or physical question. If you meant "Can we do what's necessary to survive?", then, for the human species, the answer is "yes", but for hundreds of millions of individuals, the answer is "yes, but it's probably not going to happen".
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Jul 28, 2016 03:59
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ChairMaster posted:Political will is the only thing that matters, and I honestly believe that anyone who thinks that there is a realistic way to prevent catastrophic climate change is a damned fool. It would take nothing short of a god-emperor of all humanity to enact the level of change required, it's just not going to happen. The changes needed are so massive and they need to be done so far in advance of actual catastrophe that there is no way to explain it to or convince the average person of what needs to be done. Define catastrophic climate change. Because sure, for some definitions it has already happened, but the more inaction the worse it of a catastrophe it will be. This isn't a binary state, it can be worse. Hell, even the "status quo"/"business as usual" isn't even as bad as it could be, which is frightening.
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Jul 28, 2016 04:26
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G.C. Furr III posted:You're missing the point by overly focusing on the industrialisation part rather than the actual existing historical demonstration of the extreme rapidity of change when capitalism is no longer in charge So historical demonstration meaning the Soviet Union, right? Because they did have rapid change, just not in the direction that actually protected the environment or saved human lives.
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Jul 28, 2016 04:34
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Because there isn't enough doom and gloom already, yay! So about these positive feedback loops. We don't really know, well, any of the finer details but our planet has gone through a number of *very fast climate shifts* in the past. Called Dansgaard-Oeschger events, named for the scientists, obviously. Basically the idea is that there is some trigger (Possibly milankovitch cycles) that causes runway warming which feeds more warming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard%E2%80%93Oeschger_event quote:For example, about 11,500 years ago, averaged annual temperatures on the Greenland ice sheet warmed by around 8 °C over 40 years, in three steps of five years (see,[3] Stewart, chapter 13), where a 5 °C change over 30–40 years is more common. Yay! \o/
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Jul 28, 2016 08:01
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BattleMoose posted:Because there isn't enough doom and gloom already, yay! What I'm getting from this is I should start saving up for beachfront property in Memphis right now.
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Jul 28, 2016 08:09
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Maybe Rime left the aerostat part of the typical colonization plan unsaid? Just spitballing here, though. Or his only source on Venus is an old book from the 50s, before Soviet probes confirmed what a hellhole Venus truly is.
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Jul 28, 2016 08:13
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G.C. Furr III posted:You're missing the point by overly focusing on the industrialisation part rather than the actual existing historical demonstration of the extreme rapidity of change when capitalism is no longer in charge What about the examples of capitalism not being in charge and the economy imploding? Do we just hope the right guy happens to be in charge? And industrializing faster when all the technologies and systems have already been developed isn't that amazing. What's interesting is what happened once the Soviets couldn't follow the blueprints laid out by capitalist countries and they had to develop and adapt in parallel. The rate of change appeared to be markedly lower than in capitalist countries.
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Jul 28, 2016 09:07
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Anos posted:What about the examples of capitalism not being in charge and the economy imploding? Do we just hope the right guy happens to be in charge? Krushchev flirted with economic reform but political stability and the dominance of the bureaucratic and managerial class came first in the eyes of the old guard. Gorbachev's reforms might have worked had he not blown the whole thing up by removing the CPSU's monopoly on power (which was the whole lynchpin of the economic system, still salvageable even by the late 80s). You're right that the economic dynamism faded; the Soviets had a hell of a time adopting to the post-Fordian era. However, that has a lot to do with the political decisions made and not made than any sort of inherent failing of a command economy.
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Jul 28, 2016 09:25
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KaptainKrunk posted:Krushchev flirted with economic reform but political stability and the dominance of the bureaucratic and managerial class came first in the eyes of the old guard. Gorbachev's reforms might have worked had he not blown the whole thing up by removing the CPSU's monopoly on power (which was the whole lynchpin of the economic system, still salvageable even by the late 80s). You're right that the economic dynamism faded; the Soviets had a hell of a time adopting to the post-Fordian era. However, that has a lot to do with the political decisions made and not made than any sort of inherent failing of a command economy. I think a command economy could potentially be most efficient in terms of economic development. It just requires that the people in charge make the right decisions. The problem is just that most people are wrong. There's 1000s of companies trying to figure out what the next thing in any industry will be and most of them will fail. By extension if you appoint any one group of people to decide how an industry should evolve then that group will more likely than not also be wrong. It's possible you can find a Ford or a Jobs and put them in charge of just the right thing at just the right time and then they probably would make the right decisions and implement it faster - more likely than not you'll put someone else in charge though.
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Jul 28, 2016 10:38
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Anos posted:I think a command economy could potentially be most efficient in terms of economic development. It just requires that the people in charge make the right decisions. The problem is just that most people are wrong. There's 1000s of companies trying to figure out what the next thing in any industry will be and most of them will fail. By extension if you appoint any one group of people to decide how an industry should evolve then that group will more likely than not also be wrong. It's possible you can find a Ford or a Jobs and put them in charge of just the right thing at just the right time and then they probably would make the right decisions and implement it faster - more likely than not you'll put someone else in charge though. So what you're saying is that for a command economy to work we pretty much need a benevolent dictator AI in charge. Sounds like a good idea.
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Jul 28, 2016 10:52
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History has seem to shown that Command economies are good in the short run but are unsustainable as a long term solution. So, the same as every other seemingly magical solution to problems.
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Jul 28, 2016 14:33
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computer parts posted:History has seem to shown that Command economies are good in the short run but are unsustainable as a long term solution. How about a new but different Command economy every 3 years?
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Jul 28, 2016 15:37
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Nice piece of fish posted:So what you're saying is that for a command economy to work we pretty much need a benevolent dictator AI in charge. Sounds like a good idea. Perhaps it would be best to hand over security and political decision-making to some sort of distributed AI network - a 'Sky Network', if you will.
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Jul 28, 2016 15:41
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Mozi posted:Perhaps it would be best to hand over security and political decision-making to some sort of distributed AI network - a 'Sky Network', if you will. It's a good idea, but the name is too cumbersome. Maybe shorten, contract it. "Skywork" has a nice ring to it. Anyone else getting sick and tired of the bipolar naiveté? One minute people are talking about how human beings are going to be vaporized when the climate changes to bees and the next minute we "only have to build twenty thousand desalination plants in India" or "full communism now". It's just this kind of childishness that lead us here. The unwillingness for adults to deal with a situation in a rational manner, and instead let it devolve into slogans and magical thinking. It really makes me hate you people. You sort of deserve all this poo poo.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:25
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TildeATH posted:It's a good idea, but the name is too cumbersome. Maybe shorten, contract it. "Skywork" has a nice ring to it. C'mon, it's not that bad. It's worse. You didn't even mention the genocide solution people keep bringing up.
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Jul 28, 2016 16:37
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computer parts posted:History has seem to shown that Command economies are good in the short run but are unsustainable as a long term solution. Also, countries like the US have switched to command economies before without having to overthrow the government or even confiscate a single factory. So there's that to consider too.
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Jul 28, 2016 17:33
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Curvature of Earth posted:C'mon, it's not that bad. 1. Kill all the children. 2. ??? 3. Climate change solved.
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Jul 28, 2016 18:18
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TildeATH posted:It's a good idea, but the name is too cumbersome. Maybe shorten, contract it. "Skywork" has a nice ring to it. Yeah gently caress you too bub. Expect a shotgun blast when you post up to my self-sustaining fortress village looking for food and water
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Jul 28, 2016 18:38
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TildeATH posted:Anyone else getting sick and tired of the bipolar naiveté? I wouldn't exactly call it naiveté, but like I've said before, this thread has a bad, bad habit of focusing exclusively on the political (lack of) reaction and the bad press. Warren Ellis has a novella coming out in four parts right now called Normal, which deals with what he calls "abyss gaze": the brand of PTSD that's unique to futurists. This thread revels in it. This is a big problem with a lot of moving parts and it involves, wholly or in part, a ground-up reinvention of modern civilization. Some parts of it are happening deliberately over a relatively short time due to market forces; some parts are going to end up happening very very fast in the near future because of the forces represented by climate change. Direct-capture CO2 is going to become a thing because the alternative is pretty horrible to contemplate, whether or not the political will to do so exists, and I suspect the political will for it will manifest quickly once the entirety of the Middle East decides it wants to move to Stockholm.
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Jul 29, 2016 02:36
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bef posted:Yeah gently caress you too bub. Expect a shotgun blast when you post up to my self-sustaining fortress village looking for food and water You shouldn't have let me know, now I'm just going to make my Mad Max Death Rig twice as humongous and run right over your village. And when I do, I'll definitely make a great "It takes a village" joke.
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Jul 29, 2016 02:43
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TildeATH posted:It's a good idea, but the name is too cumbersome. Maybe shorten, contract it. "Skywork" has a nice ring to it. no i'm pretty sure what lead us here is unchecked rampant expansionism and a nigh upon religious belief in the intrinsic goodness and workability of infinite growth. adults have dealt with this matter perfectly rationally. the people largely responsible ran the numbers, realized that they would be both fantastically rich and fantastically dead by the time the consequences of their actions would manifest, and continued to act in their own self-interest. the folks in charge of the world are heinously selfish, not stupid or irrational. their children and their children's children will be able to get by on their enormous inherited fortunes. personally, i don't believe that any form of communism as of yet seen in human history could accomplish or even want to accomplish the necessary measures to keep half the world from taking a permanent salt bath and prevent the total obliteration of food security, but i suppose they would likely have a better chance than the current stable of plutocrats. the only naive assumption in this thread is that anything is to be done in the first place. nothing short of a miracle from on high is going to avert the effects of anthropogenic climate change. take your loved ones and head to higher ground if you really want to feel like you're doing something. we still have some time left to get ready for the worst of it, if nothing else.
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Jul 29, 2016 02:45
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