🚀 go-pugleaf

a_jabberwock@hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> In article <3664A0AF.3093E5C6@clark.net>,
>   klaatu@clark.net wrote:
> > a_jabberwock@hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> > Possibly because, as a side effect of education - and the explosion of
> > rationality, scientism and common sense - people of conscience are deserting
> > the Mother Church in literal droves?
> 
> More likely the fact that Catholic countries recieved a structured culture
> that did away with the tribal or caste systems that doom the other area's.

Bah, it was the Romans who were the civilizing influence and who mercilessly
suppressed intertribal conflicts within conquered areas. In fact, it was one
of their failures to do this (in part, other reasons also entailed) that led
to the sack of Rome by the Goths. 

The Church simply fell heir to the Roman culture when Christianity was
declared the State Religion. Interestingly, it can be argued that this was one
of the single greatest influences on the fall of the Empire in the West, when
Rome ceased to tolerate most religions (the Roman State Religion was not only
pantheistic within its own pantheon, but accomodatingly admitted any other
gods or worship where not contrary to Roman governance) and began to require
conversion. Tribalism began to reassert itself. The Church, once it spent 500
years huddled in Byzantium, had learned; and crushed both tribalism and all
other forms of worship with a brutality which is legendary. 

> 
> >
> > >they are India, most of Asia, and parts of Africa.
> >
> > You left out the region with the greatest and most explosive potentials for
> > growth, all on the worst agricultural terrain on earth outside of Antarctica,
> > to wit, the Middle East?
> 
> The middle east is minor compared to India alone.

Not really; India has been becoming an example of a steady-state maximum
population system. It's also accelerating activities to protect its remaining
sound-ecologies and its parks-systems.

Much of the Middle East doesn't _have_ an ecology, except for the
exceptionally fragile natural desert ecologies. Growth in the Middle East
increasingly depends upon totally-artificial production of water and
desalinazation of the lands, which interestingly is showing much progress and
is to be commended. If the Rub Al-Khali could be desalinized, for instance,
it's in the zone for a very maximal hydroponics-and-highyield agriculture,
with the composts cycled into the ground and it could again be the Garden of
Eden.

> 
> > > BHut you knew that, you just want to blame the Pope for something, to pump
> > > yourself up, don't you, Chris?
> >
> > Actually, I find Chris, while a bit flippant, to be a lot more in tune with
> > reality and sensibility than yourself.
> 
> You mean your version of reality and sensibility.

Yes, and I have reason to believe that my version is, unlike yours, better
supported by mainstream science, and less supported by off-the-cuff rhetoric.
My arguments, while convincing, are less intended to convince than to inform;
your arguments are more intended to convince, but cannot afford to inform
since the position you have chosen is not supportable by any data accepted by
the scientific mainstream. for instance, your carrying-capacity estimate of
the planet's ecologies at the level of 50-billion hominids is beyond risable. 

> 
> > And with the present rates of growth, 6 billion will be achieved before the
> > end of the millenium.
> 
> And if we reach 10 billion, the world will still be here, right?

The orbiting piece of rock known as Sol III will still be in the third orbital
position around the star Sol - but it will no longer be our Homeworld and will
certainly not be capable of supporting humans in a natural state without
exceptional levels of energy-intensive and extremely resource-dependent
management and process-control. As pressures intensify, so will rebellion
against this insane and utterly artifical lifestyle you appear to support. As
rebellion intensifies, so will assaults against the management and
process-control eminences. Eventually, a cascade failure will result and
quite-often the structured strikes of a military action in large scale will be
preferred over certain cascade-failures which would make the military action
appear (by contrast) to be an act of profound mercy. Increases in population
affect the probability and devastation of cascade failure in an
inverse-fractal proportion. 

Before you trot out the false-sophistry "but if the world is here even if
humanity or even a recognizable ecology is not here", I will forestall you: I
am a human Man and I like the world I was evolved to live with - when you
argue to destroy the natural world to which I am adapted, you argue to destroy
not only me but all of my kind. 

> 
> > Note that humanity didn't achieve its first billion until the start of this
> > century.
> >
> > you don't seem to be able to understand the difference between raw numbers,
> > and statistical history, nor do you seem to have a concept of the difference
> > between linear and geometric growth, nor have you much of a concept or
> > "reproductive inertia" or the simple fucking fact
> 
> You seem to miss out on the fact that there is a maximum sustainable
> population in any geographic area, so your expedintal growth models are only
> good to a point, then the population becomes self limiting.

Yes, and either under extreme management or process-control it will maintain
itself at that maximum supportable level until cascade failure or military
action destroys it - too much power over too many may be acquired when all
live and die at the stroke of a pen! - ; or the populaiton will crash, and
after the stink of the rotting dead has subsided, new overlords will acquire
the freshly-fertile ruins.

If the new overlords learn from history, they will fail to repeat it. But due
to the arguments of such as you, I have scant hope.


> That is bad for
> that certain area, but it is not the end of the world. Your chicken little
> mentality betrays your reason.

It if happens to all of the world, or a significant fraction of it
concurrently, while the sky may not fall, the air may become unbreathable.

> 
> > that as more people waste
> > more energy in competing for less resources we see:
> 
> As more underdeveloped nations have less resources per pop, we see the
> following:
> 
> > - increases in conflict
> 
> conflict localized to underdeveloped nations

Ask Osama bin Laden, from the underdeveloped nation of Afghanistan, how hard
it would be for him to detonate a nuclear suitcase in downtown New York,
Washington, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and any other significant US
city, if only he could acquire them from Russian ex-Spetznaz/YACS huligani
engaged in international smuggling of weapons-grade plutonium or enrichable
uranium. You are a fool who wishes to win a pointless argument on UseNet, and
give no consideration of actual possibilities and thus cannot estimate
likelihoods.

> 
> > - decreases in potential remediations of conflict;
> 
> conflict that does remidiates itself at some point, due to lack of resources
> to sustain conflict and .

Sufficiently fierce initial moves in the game preclude any thought whatseover
of conflict remediation and in fact remove the need to sustain the conflict,
having led to instant victory of the one party ove the other! But what of the
bystanders left to suffer and die? You forget them, do you not? 

> 
> > depletion of non-renewable
> > resources
> 
> removal of resources to developed areas

Most have alrady been removed. Why do you think that recycling is not only big
business, but in fact an industrial necessity? Your answers are trite and
ill-thought.

> 
> > - degradation of renewable-resource renewal processes with concurrent increase
> > in politically-motivated assaults on renewable-resource renewal processes
> 
> Little change in the undeveloped area
> 
> >
> > "just for starters."
> >
> > > but the numbers mean nothing
> > > without knowing the largest stable population the Earth will support with
> > > proper managment. My guess is 50 billion.
> > >
> >
> > You are either trolling, or you need to be pilloried in the public stocks
> > beneath a sign that says "I am a senseless boob who likes to grossly
> > misrepresent the planetary ecology's carrying capacity".
> 
> Then prove me wrong, caculate the number of people that an acre can sustain
> multiplied by ariable acres possible and add the maximum that sea farming can
> sustain.

The seas are already rapidly losing their ecological diversity, suffering
immense declines in their own "arability", arable land is being lost worldwide
to desertification with the exception of very technology-intensive efforts in
such places as the Middle East, and the population you propose relies entirely
on purely-technological means of support and leaves no fail-safe fallback to a
natural world which can survive, and in which mankind can naturally survive.
Essentially, you propose that we assimilate our world, eliminate diversity,
and depend utterly upon technology. I could easily proclaim you anathematic to
all that is naturally human and indeed it could well be argued that your
arguments are those of an alien bent on prosyletizing humanity to the task of
terraforming our Homeworld to be suitable only for beings totally alien to
natural humanity. To risk a witticism, "How long have you been Borg?"

> 
> > The topic hasn't been Catholics for the last three iterations of the thread
> > here.
> 
> Catholics still figure in the topic. They are not to blame for more than a
> fraction of the world population.

A sizable fraction, you will note.

> 
> > You pretend to be the master of the unsubstantiated allegation as a prelude to
> > a diversion into interminable and pointless debate over a strawman attack?
> 
> You submit a faulty hypothisis embellished with unreasoned accusations in an
> attempt to mitigate a non issue into a diversion from your own politically
> motivated distortions of the possibilities of future implications of
> political instabilities in areas over which you have no control and limited
> understanding of.

Damn! How large a Committee was necessary to come up with that remarkable, yet
inapplicable run-in sentence?

Please, since you have the resources (and in fact appear to be, by semantic
analysis, the infamous Joe the Troll (see
http://earthops.org/troll_aliases.html ), tell me exactly what was 

- my (purportedly) faulty hypothesis
- a listing of my (purportedly) unreasons alleged accusations
- an analysis of my politics, thereby explicating my political motivations for
my (alleged) distortions
- the nature, type and character of my (alleged) distortions
- the Truth (tm) which I have (allegedly) distorted

etc etc! <big silly grin>

And by the way, if you're going to toss all of that out in one big sentence,
it would be properly finished in this manner: "... in areas over which you
have no control and of which you have limited understanding." It's really much
better grammar. Also, you may in the future wish to reconsider, at your
leisure and in the manner of a dog licking its wounds, to what degree I may
instantly learn and analyize that which you will purport that I do not know,
regarding these various areas. You may wish also, in future diatribes directly
from the Sendero Luminoso "little red handbook of maoist phraseologies", to
specify the areas so that I may, in the future, direct my staff to instantly
analyze those areas and instantly begin to move mountains of resource so as
best to prove you wrong. which, rest assured, the big money will most happily
engage to make it so.

> 

> >
> > Jeeze, you _are_ a newbie to the net, aren't you?
> 
> No, why? You looking to start a club?

No! I am trolling you for semantic-analysis purposes and you do appear to be
Joe the Troll! How do you feel about the Us Constitution Second Amendment and
the right of non-criminal citizens to keep and bear arms and Organize in
Militias in support of Law and Order and in Opposition to Tyrannical Federal
Government Intrusion and Illegal Failure to Secure the Sovereign Borders?

> 
> > > I'm fine right now, Chris, and so is Colorado. We're living high on the hog.
> >
> > Not if I can help it.
> 
> What? Is your agenda to drag others down?

Hardly! but if you are in colorado, surely you must understand the concept of
Sharing with each other through thick and thin. Share the good times and share
the bad times. It's how you get through. the trick as they say is to make sure
that everyone everywhere only has good times to share. But a 50-billion
planetary population will not be a good time for anyone... except perhaps for
the functionaries, yea, even the very propagandists, of the Party.

> 
> > Um, how ya like the radioactive water supply courtesy of
> > that nifty little outfit west of Denver that dumped all of their
> > plutonium-refining sludge into surface ponds on your uphill slope?
> 
> Funny, my water is not radioactive.

You only think that because we do not allow citizens in colorado to have
access to working Geiger Counters unless they support the US Constitution, and
particularly the Second Amendment.

> 
> > Judging from your rhetoric and the shapes of most of the people living out
> > there, I'd say that that there ol nuke-juice must be damned near making you
> > glow in the dark.
> 
> Sorry to disappoint you, things here are A OK

I'm glad you think so! Drink deep!

> 
> > Oh, BTW, I'll stop saying how bad Denver sucks when the earth opens and
> > swallows it up.
> 
> No, you will be dead and forgotten long before then.

I dunno, there's an item W-88 in the basement of the US Mint downtown that
says otherwise. (feel free to believe me or not, I don't care.)

> 
> > > It's very practical, just not practiced, especially in less developed
> > > countries where people have nothing.
> >
> > See? they've already bred chastity out of their populations. Population
> > explosion, crash, explosion, crash, explosion, crash <etc etc ad nauseum> here
> > we come!
> 
> Here we come?  you mean there they go again, don't you?

Different turns of phrase, same meaning. Ahoy captain, I reckon
pure-foolishness dead ahead! Avast! Arrr!

> 
> > You're barking up the wrong tree and have been for the last few posts.
> 
> Huh?

And in the wrong neck of the woods, too!

> 
> > >
> > > But how can you really mean it when you would limit free speech of a
> > > religious nature?
> >
> > Strawman argument, "where the hell did e say that?"
> 
> Can you read?

And not only that, I can interpret what I read! Which is why I said that!
confused? Don't speak English as a native speaker eh?

> 
> > I dunno. what about religious freaks who think they have the right to kill
> > anyone they label a witch "cause thou shalt not suffer a witch to live?"
> 
> Those which burnings have really gotten out of hand lately, huh? How many this
> year? 0?

I dunno, maybe ask Melissa9 about her own pleasant experiences for being
weird. BTW, being weird is a constitutional right, sorta like Free Speech. You
don't support a right to nonviolent free expression of self? Of course not.
what are you, a communist?

> 
> > Agnostic isn't a religion. Nor is atheism.
> 
> Certainly they are.

Failure to have a personal delusional system is not equal to having a personal
delusional system.

> 
> >
> > You do like to trot out strawman arguments, don't you?
> 
> Find "strawman" in your word a day calender?

Nope, but it's sure applicable to your rhetorical technique, in fact, your
remark above is a textbook example! ROFL.

> 
> > Combining strawman
> > arguments with presuppositive ad-hominem attacks is generally considered the
> > premiere indicator that you've no real arguments in support of your own
> > (obviously ill-chosen) position.
> 
> No, your misdirection combined with your colorado bashing is the premire
> indicator that you're blowing smoke son. Now do the math and tell me how many
> people the world can support.

Your question is incomplete, you have forgotten to list a variety of
implementational paradigms or reasonably-analyzable regimes known to be within
the realm of forseeable technical possibility. Besides, you are asking the
wrong question, or actually, only a part of the right question.

As natural humans in a natural ecology, yet possessed of all of our present
knowledge, we are overpopulated by about 40 percent of sustainable in the US,
much higher in the rest of the world. 

At our present level of technology, we are approaching saturation and can
(without significant advance in renewable energy resources) supportably expand
no more than ten percent in population in the US without significant losses in
quality of life.

At a significantly advanced stage of intensive hydroponic (in-vitro)
cultivation, divorced from natural ecologic systems, we could perhaps decuple
our population, although securing employment for said increased population in
an era of intensified robotic-automation in industrial systems in an
increasingly post-industrial economy, would be problematic at best. 

Would you care to question in more detail, and add significant parameters to
your detail?

I'll get the committee right on it. Oh hell, why bother? I have the entire
global Internet at my disposal, and I know how to use it, and I am not out to
support ant religion or political system, just rationalism. unlike you i do
not need a committee to provide my thoughts for me

> 
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