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Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

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Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#61
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you view 7.5 billion humans as being too many people, what are your views on the 70 billion farm animals we have?

isn't the 70B of farm animals just a part of the "7.5B humans" problem? Anyway, i think that it is a crying shame that we're still farming animals instead of growing artificial meat. Once we finally have artificial meat and thus stop killing sentient beings, i think that would result in a great leap in our conscience, empathy, etc. - it will unleash a great deal of human mental development with natural results in soc…

We're consuming much more than we used to:

https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production

"The world now produces more than four times the quantity of meat as it did fifty years ago"

"The average person in the world consumed around 43 kilograms of meat in 2014. This ranges from over 100kg in the US and Australia to only 5kg in India."

"Meat consumption increases as the world is getting richer."

When the earth has finite resources, why not reduce the amount of resources used per person before talking about population control? Even with less people, you have to draw a limit somewhere on resource usage.

> Anyway, i think that it is a crying shame that we're still farming animals instead of growing artificial meat. Once we finally have artificial meat and thus stop killing sentient beings, i think that would result in a great leap in our conscience, empathy, etc. - it will unleash a great deal of human mental development with natural results in social and economic development.

Are there any realistic timelines on when lab grown meat will be available and affordable? How about lab grown steaks, whole ducks and whole salmon? At what stage do you think people who won't switch to alternatives now would switch?

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#62
post #9

This is why we need less humans on this planet. No one says that, because having as many kids as you like seems to be considered a basic human right. But imagine Earth with a stable 10% of our current population. Clean, abundant, and without the catastrophic extinction event already underway.

Are you volunteering to go first?

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#63

It's amazing and wonderful how much environmental damage seems to be recovering. Air pollution is down, carbon emissions are down as much as 17%, fish and sharks are repopulating shorelines and beaches - and to think, all it took was the most severe public health crisis in 100 years, a catastrophic global recession, and an overpowering wave of human misery and death

Another point to balance the "how much environmental damage seems to be recovering":

CO2 in the atmosphere has a long inertia. The (reduction of) emissions in the past few months will not have any effect on the global warming for a few decades.

Basically in the short/mid-term, CO2 emissions are accumulated to previous emissions, not replacing them

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#64

It's amazing and wonderful how much environmental damage seems to be recovering. Air pollution is down, carbon emissions are down as much as 17%, fish and sharks are repopulating shorelines and beaches - and to think, all it took was the most severe public health crisis in 100 years, a catastrophic global recession, and an overpowering wave of human misery and death

Unfortunately, it looks like this will be short-lived. China's emissions for some pollutants are already above what they were pre-shutdown.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-...

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#65
post #9

This is why we need less humans on this planet. No one says that, because having as many kids as you like seems to be considered a basic human right. But imagine Earth with a stable 10% of our current population. Clean, abundant, and without the catastrophic extinction event already underway.

> No one says that Why do people who say we need fewer humans on the planet always say, "no one says this?" Literally every discussion about population, pollution, global warming, fusion, farming, or social sciences has some thread where someone says, "there are too many people and no one is talking about it." It's getting tiring reading this martyrdom, and I generally tend to agree with the viewpoint. But this is no…

Folks love to think they’re more controversial and brave than they actually are. Feels good to think you’re a firebrand who’s not afraid to “tell it like it is”, even though no one agrees with you.

Some might even call it a “Thiel Truth”.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#66
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're taking steps and not having children then?

See my comment one level up. If you're having 2 children, you're already helping. If no one's having kids at all then we'd go extinct lol

Is it bad though?

If there are no us, there is no one who cares about our existence. There is no sense of losing something if something doesn't exist.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#67
post #9

This is why we need less humans on this planet. No one says that, because having as many kids as you like seems to be considered a basic human right. But imagine Earth with a stable 10% of our current population. Clean, abundant, and without the catastrophic extinction event already underway.

Up until less than a hundred years ago the only way to make sure any of your kids survived was to have seven or eight of them. This has change dramatically in the developed countries and is on the way every else as well as standards of living increase. Child births need to be at around 2.1 per woman if the population is to remain constant. Right now most developed countries are way below that. https://en.m.wikipedia.…

And many underdeveloped too: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

2 countries have less than 1 kid per woman 114 countries have less than 2 62 countries have less than 3 (20 of which are at less than 2.2) 21 countries have less than 4 18 countries have less than 5 11 countries have less than 6

Of the largest 6 (half the world's population): China has 1.6, India 2.3, US 1.8, Indonesia 2.0, Pakistan 3.6, Brazil 1.7.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#68
post #64

It's amazing and wonderful how much environmental damage seems to be recovering. Air pollution is down, carbon emissions are down as much as 17%, fish and sharks are repopulating shorelines and beaches - and to think, all it took was the most severe public health crisis in 100 years, a catastrophic global recession, and an overpowering wave of human misery and death

Unfortunately, it looks like this will be short-lived. China's emissions for some pollutants are already above what they were pre-shutdown. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-...

Oh, F*ck :(

Greedy human race Signed: bleeding coral reef with sad penguin

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#69

Any chance to see a “before” picture? I searched without success. Or is that kind of the point?

I think that's the point! I found some possible candidates on Google Street View (which only has isolated spots):

From Chobhar in March 2019, facing Everest: https://www.google.com/maps/@27.6541403,85.2796492,3a,75y,78...

Elsewhere in Kathmandu in April 2020, facing Everest: https://www.google.com/maps/@27.6745306,85.3249687,3a,75y,59...

There's no hope of seeing that far through the haze.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#70
post #9

This is why we need less humans on this planet. No one says that, because having as many kids as you like seems to be considered a basic human right. But imagine Earth with a stable 10% of our current population. Clean, abundant, and without the catastrophic extinction event already underway.

> But imagine Earth with a stable 10% of our current population. I can't imagine maintaining that in anything other than a brutal and arbitrary way. It's very difficult to separate humans from their humanity, and even in countries where birth limits have been tried, we know that it is an ineffective policy and is ultimately cruel. > Clean, abundant, and without the catastrophic extinction event already underway. Just…

Not at all, just increase tax per child per household. 0-2 children at a normal rate, and increasing per extra child.
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