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Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

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Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#31

Post by rrrrrertt »

prolly97 wrote: post #29
EGreg wrote: post #9

Elon Musk is worried about “population collapse” in countries Perhaps he’s underestimating the amount of resources needed per person and the garbage each person produces Our planet had under a billion people for every century except the 20th and 21st, right? What was so bad about that? The idea that less human scientists, workers means less innovation, productivity is not necessarily true now in the age of automation…

Uhu.. And how do we decide which people we don't want to exist? Is it last in first out? - "we were here first"? As one of the 8 billion on this earth, I'm rather happy being alive. And would love to give that gift to someone else. As many as possible, in fact. You're proposing a world where I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life. Which is absolutely insane. Your view only makes sense from the POV of th…

LOL, there's so many people who hate being alive, you don't know if your kids will be happy or not. You are betting with an innocent's life, all for your self-satisfaction.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#32

Post by card_zero »

prolly97 wrote: post #29
EGreg wrote: post #9

Elon Musk is worried about “population collapse” in countries Perhaps he’s underestimating the amount of resources needed per person and the garbage each person produces Our planet had under a billion people for every century except the 20th and 21st, right? What was so bad about that? The idea that less human scientists, workers means less innovation, productivity is not necessarily true now in the age of automation…

Uhu.. And how do we decide which people we don't want to exist? Is it last in first out? - "we were here first"? As one of the 8 billion on this earth, I'm rather happy being alive. And would love to give that gift to someone else. As many as possible, in fact. You're proposing a world where I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life. Which is absolutely insane. Your view only makes sense from the POV of th…

Balls, they're proposing a world where somebody else, who never had siblings, should be happy not to have siblings. It's nothing to do with people who are already alive or what they're accustomed to.

I reserve judgement on whether this natural phasing out of 7 billion people (through natural deaths) is a good idea or not. Ideally, we'd cure death, which makes the plan unethical.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#33

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

jebebeebehhe wrote: post #23
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like efforts to fix our problems are being deliberately sabotaged by wealthy corporations as they attempt to squeeze as much profit as they can before our inevitable civilisation collapse. Personally, I think the best way to make progress would be to remove the billionaires first as they are working against the majority's interests.

Communism. (I say as a non-pejorative) I wonder if there is a way to make that work. Or decent socialism. Co-ops > Corps.

I think there has to be some controls put on Capitalism as currently, all the incentives are for corporations/businesses to exploit natural resources as fast as possible with hardly any incentives to protect habitats (including ours).

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#34

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

ThrowAaaaway wrote: post #14
ok_dad wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, we’ll use all the power useful for making clean water from the ocean for AI, and the shareholders will be so happy they can continue to extract value from those aquifers for a while longer :)

It's possible to use waste heat to evaporate water, to make drinking water from salt water, but it's unpractical to build datacenter on a shore, or pump salt water uphil to a datacenter.

Evaporating water is not the best way to desalinate water as it's inevitably energy intensive (though waste heat makes that less of an issue). It seems unlikely that datacenters will produce enough waste heat to supply populations with drinking water.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#35

Post by EGreg »

prolly97 wrote: post #29
EGreg wrote: post #9

Elon Musk is worried about “population collapse” in countries Perhaps he’s underestimating the amount of resources needed per person and the garbage each person produces Our planet had under a billion people for every century except the 20th and 21st, right? What was so bad about that? The idea that less human scientists, workers means less innovation, productivity is not necessarily true now in the age of automation…

Uhu.. And how do we decide which people we don't want to exist? Is it last in first out? - "we were here first"? As one of the 8 billion on this earth, I'm rather happy being alive. And would love to give that gift to someone else. As many as possible, in fact. You're proposing a world where I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life. Which is absolutely insane. Your view only makes sense from the POV of th…

Who says we decide it?

They voluntarily live their lives and have less children. They make the decision.

Contraception is much better than it was before. Women’s education is correlated heavily with having less children.

Elon Musk and people that think like him are the ones bemoaning it and trying to encourage them to have more children. But scratch below the surface — the reasons these “pronatalists” have stated are quite interesting.

https://fortune.com/2024/10/22/elon-musk-people-should-have-...

If you want to go the other way, consider Pavel Durov’s approach of sperm banks and fathering over 100 children he won’t have to take care of. A great way to propagate your DNA of course!

But consider the Categorical Imperative … what would happen if everyone did it?

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#36

Post by card_zero »

EGreg wrote: post #35
prolly97 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhu.. And how do we decide which people we don't want to exist? Is it last in first out? - "we were here first"? As one of the 8 billion on this earth, I'm rather happy being alive. And would love to give that gift to someone else. As many as possible, in fact. You're proposing a world where I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life. Which is absolutely insane. Your view only makes sense from the POV of th…

Who says we decide it? They voluntarily live their lives and have less children. They make the decision. Contraception is much better than it was before. Women’s education is correlated heavily with having less children. Elon Musk and people that think like him are the ones bemoaning it and trying to encourage them to have more children. But scratch below the surface — the reasons these “pronatalists” have stated are…

The growth rate is declining anyway, might level off at ten billion. I don't think people are having many more children than is wise, really.

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#39

Post by eesmith »

prolly97 wrote: post #29
EGreg wrote: post #9

Elon Musk is worried about “population collapse” in countries Perhaps he’s underestimating the amount of resources needed per person and the garbage each person produces Our planet had under a billion people for every century except the 20th and 21st, right? What was so bad about that? The idea that less human scientists, workers means less innovation, productivity is not necessarily true now in the age of automation…

Uhu.. And how do we decide which people we don't want to exist? Is it last in first out? - "we were here first"? As one of the 8 billion on this earth, I'm rather happy being alive. And would love to give that gift to someone else. As many as possible, in fact. You're proposing a world where I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life. Which is absolutely insane. Your view only makes sense from the POV of th…

> As many as possible, in fact.

How many? 20 billion? 50 billion? 1 trillion? That Star Trek: ToS episode "The Mark of Gideon" where the planet is so overpopulated that privacy does not exist and it's a rare privilege to be alone?

> I should be happy not to have my siblings in my life

How unhappy should I be that my parents decided to not have more kids, when I could have had more siblings? Should I criticize their decision to prioritize parental attention and the family's economic well-being over me being one of 12 kids like my grandfather?

The US state where I was born and raised has 3x the population now as compared to when I was born. Wild, isolated places I enjoyed have been replaced by row upon row of houses. Roads that were empty and fast are now white-knuckled congestion.

I would love to give that gift of wilderness to someone else. You are proposing a world where everything is dedicated towards human habitation. Your view only makes sense from the POV of someone who doesn't care about natural places, or being the lucky chosen one who can afford their own reserve.

> We've solved harder problems.

You are mistaken. We've delayed harder problems. As Norman Borlaug ("father of the Green Revolution") said in his Nobel Prize speech in 1970: "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise, the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only"

He was an optimist. "Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth and will adjust the growth rate to levels which will permit a decent standard of living for all mankind."

Re: Scientists Say Our Water Cycle Has Started Breaking Down

#40

Post by Zealotux »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #19
karol wrote: post #11

We need to get everyone rich very quickly, because rich people don't drink tap water but bottled spring water, so no-one will be affected.

Got to keep those microplastic levels topped up

Joke's on you; I drink water from glass bottles only.
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