A destructive thought process.

[Lorenzaccio]

There is no innate meaning to life. That is not to say that life has no value or that life can't be given a meaning or a purpose. Life can be given a meaning or a purpose but it is important to differentiate a legitimate meaning or purpose from an illegitimate meaning or purpose. It is also important to differentiate a meaning or purpose that was given legitimately and one that was not. Although life is often giving a measurable value, life's value is subjectively giving and there is no innate value to life. This is why it is impossible that one living being would have more value than another living being; or, that one ethnicity would have more value than another ethnicity;or, likewise, that one living species would have more value than another living species.

How you perceive something is dependant on the value you subjectively give it; consciously or not. Further more, your actions and how you treat something depends on how you perceive it.
If when you look at women, you see objects, you’ll treat them one way. If when you look at women, you see women, you’ll treat them differently. If when you look at this particular woman you see this particular woman, you’ll treat her differently still.
If when you look at African Americans, you see criminals, you’ll treat them one way. If when you look at African Americans, you see people, you’ll treat them differently. If when you look at this particular person you see this particular person, you’ll treat them differently still.
If when you look at trees, you see dollar bills, you’ll treat them one way. If when you look at trees, you see trees, you’ll treat them differently. If when you look at this particular tree you see this particular tree, you’ll treat it differently still.

Again :

Vine Deloria, Jr.

"If you see the world around you as made up of objects for you to manipulate and exploit, not only is it inevitable that you will destroy the world by attempting to control it, but perceiving the world as lifeless robs you of the richness, beauty, and wisdom of participating in the larger pattern of life.”

Where I'm going with this :

Our greatest issue is probably our perception of the world, for it is our perception of the world that has created civilization.

Civilization, I define as : a culture - that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts - that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil : from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin, civitatis, meaning city-state), with cities being defined - so as to distinguish them from camps, villages and so on - as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life. (Source.)

Civilization is based on an ideology in which humans are superior entities to which the world is their slave. One of the central myths of this culture concerns the desirability of growth, a parasitic expansion to fill and consume its host. This was manifest from the beginning, as we were told in Genesis, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it : and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth." (Source : Genesis 1:28 ) Of course we see the same absurd mythology of growth and exploitation today. Just last night I read, in language less theological yet expressing the same thing, a sentence by Joseph Chilston Pearce, an author well-respected for his attempts to change this culture's destructive path : "The amount [of gray matter] we have is just what we need for certain goals nature has in mind, such as our dominion over the earth." (Source : Pearce,5.) From it's opening to it's endgame, civilization has been nothing if not consistently narcissistic, domineering, and exploitative. And it is consistent in its attempts to make these attributes seem natural, to make them seen as though nature itself is to blame for our exploitation of it, which just joins with the Abusive nature of civilization in the first place. ("She was asking for it", we can say with clean conscience as we pull up our pants and leave the dark alley.)
We can see the myth of growth at work in the Catholic church's continued hostility toward birth control, attempting to get us to believe, as the ironic bumper sticker so eloquently puts it, that "every ejaculation deserves a name." We can see it in the concern over falling birthrates in industrialized nations such as Greece and Russia. And we can see it in commonplace acceptance of the very real fact that without constant economic expansion capitalism will collapse almost immediately.
The mythology is grounded in reality - cultural reality, that is - because from the beginning the very existence of city-states has required the importation of resources from ever-expanding regions of increasingly exploited countryside. It has required growth.
Well, that's going to stop someday. At some point, probably in the not-too-distant future, there will be far fewer people on this planet. There will far fewer than the planet could have supported - and did support - prior to us overshooting carrying capacity, because the great stocks of wild foods are gone (or poisoned), the top soil lost in the wind.
My saying this doesn't mean I hate people. Far from it. A few weeks ago I received an email in response to my statement that the only sustainable level of technology is the Stone Age. The person said, "I don't think the stone-age will support anything near the current world of population. [Of course, I agree.] So to return to this level implies either killing a lot of people or not having many children and waiting for the population to diminish. Or do we allow war or other pestilence to do the job? Is this what you are proposing?"
I responded that what I'm proposing, startlingly enough, is that we look honestly at our situation. And our situation is that we have overshot carrying capacity. The question becomes : What are we going to do about it?

[Suicidesoldier#1]

Okay, but why do we need to end civilization?

I suppose to clarify, what geographic area constitutes a civilization; if an entire country for instance was self contained, and did not need imports, would not be a civilization? If it had it's own farmers and iron ore and oil drillers and was completely self sufficient, as a nation, would this be a civilization; if so, why? It does not import resources from outside it's boundaries, and it is simply bigger than a small city, population and geographic wise. Does a certain size inherently make something a civilization; and if so, is this bad?

Is the crux that your definition is inherently based on numbers and as a result you use that to try to justify your position?


Furthermore, why do we need to end civilization; resources come from somewhere, the planet, and thus all resources are imported. We do not suddenly gain more on the planet by not importing them, so this changes nothing, and if anything, by ignoring these resources, reduces our supply.

If the argument is we will run out of resources, ending civilization will do little than decrease our numbers due to the obvious problems and thus the rate of consumption, and inherently relies on the crux that we do not have enough resources, or we will run out soon.


If the latter is the case, then it becomes a numbers game, demonstrably provable or disprovable by facts. Do you have any of these, necessitating a swift end to "civilization" or our numbers to extend life for any major reason?

[Lorenzaccio]

Suicidesoldier#1

Okay, but why do we need to end civilization?

Don't jump to conclusions just yet.

I haven't said in this thread that we need to destroy civilization; I asked what are we going to do about it. I actually speak of a way of thinking a lot more than I do of civilization.

[Suicidesoldier#1]

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

Okay, but why do we need to end civilization?

Don't jump to conclusions just yet.

I haven't said in this thread that we need to destroy civilization; I asked what are we going to do about it. I actually speak of a way of thinking a lot more than I do of civilization.

Well, it's like, the same thing.

I guess you brought up something like humans wanting to have a lot of kids, which is natural given we want to spread our genes and even our culture and language by having more people raised the way we were, which inherently means that culture will become bigger and by virtue of it's size dominate the bulk of the planet, but...


You assume that we have overshot our carrying capacity.

What is that based on?

[Lorenzaccio]

Suicidesoldier#1

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

Okay, but why do we need to end civilization?

Don't jump to conclusions just yet.

I haven't said in this thread that we need to destroy civilization; I asked what are we going to do about it. I actually speak of a way of thinking a lot more than I do of civilization.

Well, it's like, the same thing.

I guess you brought up something like humans wanting to have a lot of kids, which is natural given we want to spread our genes and even our culture and language by having more people raised the way we were, which inherently means that culture will become bigger and by virtue of it's size dominate the bulk of the planet, but...


You assume that we have overshot our carrying capacity.

What is that based on?

It's not the same thing at all. Asking people to think for themselves and telling people that we need to destroy civilization are two very different things.

I've been thinking a lot lately about carrying capacity, and what that will mean for life through the crash. The best book I've read about carrying capacity - what it is and what it means - is Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, by William R.Canton, Jr. Any environment's carrying capacity, he states is the number of creatures living a certain way who can be supported permanently on a certain piece of land, for example how many deer could live on a certain island without overgrazing and damaging the capacity of that island to grow food for them. Permanently is the key word here, because it's possible to overshoot carrying capacity - to temporarily have more creatures than the land can support - but doing so damages the land, and permanently lowers future carrying capacity. This is true when talk about nonhumans, and it's just as true when e talk about humans.
Consider the land where you live. How many people could it have permanently supported before the arrival of our extractive culture? How many people did it support? What did these people eat? What materials did those who came before use to make their homes?
And now? What will those who come after eat? If you were to rely only on local foods harvested sustainably - by which I mean entirely without the assistance of civilization or its technologies (e;g, no fossil fuels or mining) - what would you eat? Do the plants and animals eaten there before still call this their home? How many people could live in your place forever? How many people will live there after the crash?
There are a few ways one can temporarily exceed a place's carrying capacity. One is by degrading the landscape; for example, eating all of the local fish this year instead of eating few enough that the fish remain fecund as always. Another example would be killing off species you don't eat - salamanders, owls, bees, grasshoppers, and others - and in doing so almost undoubtedly impeding the eventual viability of your food sources.
Once you've undercut the carrying capacity where you live, you can continue to exceed your carrying capacity by degrading someplace else, for example, by eating all of that place's fish. This is just another way of saying that cities must import resources, a process also known as conquest, colonialism, and these days, the global economy. As we've seen, when the resources of that other place get depleted - when it's carrying capacity has more or less been permanently reduced - those who are importing resources will attempt to find another place to exploit. Because the power of those at the center of empires always depends on this importations/ Exploitation, the powerful have become quite adept at it. It is, at this point, nearly ubiquitous. As long ago as 1965, more than half of GReat Britain's foods were coming from what Catton and others call "ghost acreage", that is, from sources invisible to those at the center. Catton writes, " if food could not be obtained from the sea (6.5%) or from other nations (48%), more than half of Britain would have faced starvations, or all British people would have been less than half nourished. Likewise, if Japan could not have drawn upon fisheries all around the globe and upon trade with other nations, two-thirds of her people would have been starving, or every Japanese citizen would have been two-thirds undernourished." (Source : Catton, VII, 39.) This importation not only makes the lifestyles (and lives) of those who import dependent on the military and economic violence I've been talking about, but also makes them strangely dependent on those from whom they steal.
The United States economy is dependent on oil from the Middle East, South America and around the world. American lives are dependent on it : the agricultural infrastructure - from gasoline to pesticides - rests on the foundation of oil and natural gas. it's not too much to say that we eat refined and transformed oil. It's like Catton wrote, "Everything human beings do requires energy. At the barest minimum, animals human in form but with no technology would have been converting in their own bodies about 2000 to 3000 kilocalories of chemical energy (from food) into heat in the course of a day's activities." (Source : ibid.) That changed with domestication - more properly called enslavement - as some humans were able to harvest the energy - work - of those they enslaved, whether it was an ox pulling a plow or a bunch of humans pulling big blocks of stone to make mausoleums for the rich. And it changed again with oil.

[Lorenzaccio]

Suicidesoldier#1

I suppose to clarify, what geographic area constitutes a civilization; if an entire country for instance was self contained, and did not need imports, would not be a civilization? If it had it's own farmers and iron ore and oil drillers and was completely self sufficient, as a nation, would this be a civilization; if so, why? It does not import resources from outside it's boundaries, and it is simply bigger than a small city, population and geographic wise. Does a certain size inherently make something a civilization; and if so, is this bad?

Is the crux that your definition is inherently based on numbers and as a result you use that to try to justify your position?


Furthermore, why do we need to end civilization; resources come from somewhere, the planet, and thus all resources are imported. We do not suddenly gain more on the planet by not importing them, so this changes nothing, and if anything, by ignoring these resources, reduces our supply.

If the argument is we will run out of resources, ending civilization will do little than decrease our numbers due to the obvious problems and thus the rate of consumption, and inherently relies on the crux that we do not have enough resources, or we will run out soon.


If the latter is the case, then it becomes a numbers game, demonstrably provable or disprovable by facts. Do you have any of these, necessitating a swift end to "civilization" or our numbers to extend life for any major reason?

Civilization is born through city states. A country could just be a regrouped set of cities (as they usually are) and so it would be a civilization. Each individual city would require importation of goods from the country side. Let's say that region A can sustain 500 people. That means that 500 people can live in region A without needing to get food from region B or C. They could live together in a village in the centre of region A and live fairly well, not having to import resources from other regions other than that of the village. But if the population was 3 million in region A, then they would require the importation of resources.

My argument isn't just one thing though. I am not solely against the fact that civilization is not sustainable. I'm also against the social inequities that are created by civilization and many, many other things caused by civilization.

One thing that extensive agriculture does is destroy top soil, making it nearly impossible to cultivate on the soil again. One thing that extensive fishing does is create dead zones in the Sea that won't be full of life until another few generations. (Sea, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Nordic Sea, Gulf of Japan, Northern Pacific, Ect). Hunter Gatherer societies or Stone Age agriculture never had those problems and thus had a more sustainable society.

[Suicidesoldier#1]

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

I suppose to clarify, what geographic area constitutes a civilization; if an entire country for instance was self contained, and did not need imports, would not be a civilization? If it had it's own farmers and iron ore and oil drillers and was completely self sufficient, as a nation, would this be a civilization; if so, why? It does not import resources from outside it's boundaries, and it is simply bigger than a small city, population and geographic wise. Does a certain size inherently make something a civilization; and if so, is this bad?

Is the crux that your definition is inherently based on numbers and as a result you use that to try to justify your position?


Furthermore, why do we need to end civilization; resources come from somewhere, the planet, and thus all resources are imported. We do not suddenly gain more on the planet by not importing them, so this changes nothing, and if anything, by ignoring these resources, reduces our supply.

If the argument is we will run out of resources, ending civilization will do little than decrease our numbers due to the obvious problems and thus the rate of consumption, and inherently relies on the crux that we do not have enough resources, or we will run out soon.


If the latter is the case, then it becomes a numbers game, demonstrably provable or disprovable by facts. Do you have any of these, necessitating a swift end to "civilization" or our numbers to extend life for any major reason?

Civilization is born through city states. A country could just be a regrouped set of cities (as they usually are) and so it would be a civilization. Each individual city would require importation of goods from the country side. Let's say that region A can sustain 500 people. That means that 500 people can live in region A without needing to get food from region B or C. They could live together in a village in the centre of region A and live fairly well, not having to import resources from other regions other than that of the village. But if the population was 3 million in region A, then they would require the importation of resources.

My argument isn't just one thing though. I am not solely against the fact that civilization is not sustainable. I'm also against the social inequities that are created by civilization and many, many other things caused by civilization.

One thing that extensive agriculture does is destroy top soil, making it nearly impossible to cultivate on the soil again. One thing that extensive fishing does is create dead zones in the Sea that won't be full of life until another few generations. (Sea, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Nordic Sea, Gulf of Japan, Northern Pacific, Ect). Hunter Gatherer societies or Stone Age agriculture never had those problems and thus had a more sustainable society.

The dust bowel turned lots of farmland into desert like area. We recovered from it in less than 20 years, and that was the worst disaster we had; with things like crop rotations and improved farming techniques, and farming organization as well as subsidies, we created much more efficient farming techniques, that don't deplete the topsoil of it's nutrients, but help add back to it through proper cycles. Overfishing is a very sketchy subject, with not a lot of information behind it; while we can fish a lot in a certain area, fish are relatively mobile, and can travel hundreds of miles in a single migration incident, so depleting one area seems pretty hard; maybe a certain current, but again, sketchy information at best.

But what defines a city state? When does something change from a city to a nation; is it just a name, a geographical area, a certain population, or what? What changes it from a bunch of city states to one giant city; or a "civilization"?

[Lorenzaccio]

Suicidesoldier#1

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

I suppose to clarify, what geographic area constitutes a civilization; if an entire country for instance was self contained, and did not need imports, would not be a civilization? If it had it's own farmers and iron ore and oil drillers and was completely self sufficient, as a nation, would this be a civilization; if so, why? It does not import resources from outside it's boundaries, and it is simply bigger than a small city, population and geographic wise. Does a certain size inherently make something a civilization; and if so, is this bad?

Is the crux that your definition is inherently based on numbers and as a result you use that to try to justify your position?


Furthermore, why do we need to end civilization; resources come from somewhere, the planet, and thus all resources are imported. We do not suddenly gain more on the planet by not importing them, so this changes nothing, and if anything, by ignoring these resources, reduces our supply.

If the argument is we will run out of resources, ending civilization will do little than decrease our numbers due to the obvious problems and thus the rate of consumption, and inherently relies on the crux that we do not have enough resources, or we will run out soon.


If the latter is the case, then it becomes a numbers game, demonstrably provable or disprovable by facts. Do you have any of these, necessitating a swift end to "civilization" or our numbers to extend life for any major reason?

Civilization is born through city states. A country could just be a regrouped set of cities (as they usually are) and so it would be a civilization. Each individual city would require importation of goods from the country side. Let's say that region A can sustain 500 people. That means that 500 people can live in region A without needing to get food from region B or C. They could live together in a village in the centre of region A and live fairly well, not having to import resources from other regions other than that of the village. But if the population was 3 million in region A, then they would require the importation of resources.

My argument isn't just one thing though. I am not solely against the fact that civilization is not sustainable. I'm also against the social inequities that are created by civilization and many, many other things caused by civilization.

One thing that extensive agriculture does is destroy top soil, making it nearly impossible to cultivate on the soil again. One thing that extensive fishing does is create dead zones in the Sea that won't be full of life until another few generations. (Sea, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Nordic Sea, Gulf of Japan, Northern Pacific, Ect). Hunter Gatherer societies or Stone Age agriculture never had those problems and thus had a more sustainable society.

The dust bowel turned lots of farmland into desert like area. We recovered from it in less than 20 years, and that was the worst disaster we had; with things like crop rotations and improved farming techniques, and farming organization as well as subsidies, we created much more efficient farming techniques, that don't deplete the topsoil of it's nutrients, but help add back to it through proper cycles. Overfishing is a very sketchy subject, with not a lot of information behind it; while we can fish a lot in a certain area, fish are relatively mobile, and can travel hundreds of miles in a single migration incident, so depleting one area seems pretty hard; maybe a certain current, but again, sketchy information at best.

But what defines a city state? When does something change from a city to a nation; is it just a name, a geographical area, a certain population, or what? What changes it from a bunch of city states to one giant city; or a "civilization"?

I am not denying any kind of agricultural "improvements". That's not my point. My point is that I'm against extensive farming because of the problems it causes such as desertification, dust bowls and soil destruction. "On the global basis, the soil degradation is caused primarily by overgrazing (35%), agricultural activities (28%), deforestation (30%), overexplotation of land to produce fuelwood (7%), and industrialization (4%)." Source : World resources Institute.
"Over the past 50 years, at the southern edge of the Sahara, an area the size of Somalia has become desert. The same fate now threatens more than one-third of the African continent. The main cause of desertification is not drought, but mismanagement of land, including overgrazing and felling of trees and brushwood for fuel." Source : Global Change, Land Degredation.


"We have discussed some of the major problems in soil degradation. Can degraded soils be restored to full function? This turns out to be a significant problem.

In general lightly degraded soils can be improved by crop rotation, minimum tillage techniques (next lecture), and other farm practices. More severely degraded soils are more difficult to restore.

Moderately damaged land takes more resources than an average farmer has to restore. Changes in soil conservation practices can slow land degradation, but not restore fertility often. National programs will be needed for such lands, requiring major structural change (e.g., draining, contour banks, etc.)

Severely eroded land generally is simply abandoned. Restoration efforts are simply beyond developing countries - requiring deep ditches for drainage, terraces to hold the soil in place, mechanized deep ploughing to remove compaction, reseeding programs, etc. " Source: Ibid.

Lastly, aquatic dead zones are not all that sketchy as a subject at all.
Dead zones do exist because of many reasons. The major reasons are always caused by human activity. (Over Fishing, depletion of oxygen in the ocean, temperature rises, oil spills. ect)

A city state is a city that with its surrounding territory that forms an independent state. I guess if you really want to know what a nation is, I mean, if you really don't know, I suggest you look it up on google since it has little to do with my definition of Civilization. A Civilization is a culture characterized by the growth of cities. Anyone who lives under the same culture would be part of that civilization, regardless if they live in an urban area or alone in the mountains. If they live the same cultural life style as that of the civilized culture which is characterized by cities, they are still civilized, even if they don't live in the cities.

[Suicidesoldier#1]

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

I suppose to clarify, what geographic area constitutes a civilization; if an entire country for instance was self contained, and did not need imports, would not be a civilization? If it had it's own farmers and iron ore and oil drillers and was completely self sufficient, as a nation, would this be a civilization; if so, why? It does not import resources from outside it's boundaries, and it is simply bigger than a small city, population and geographic wise. Does a certain size inherently make something a civilization; and if so, is this bad?

Is the crux that your definition is inherently based on numbers and as a result you use that to try to justify your position?


Furthermore, why do we need to end civilization; resources come from somewhere, the planet, and thus all resources are imported. We do not suddenly gain more on the planet by not importing them, so this changes nothing, and if anything, by ignoring these resources, reduces our supply.

If the argument is we will run out of resources, ending civilization will do little than decrease our numbers due to the obvious problems and thus the rate of consumption, and inherently relies on the crux that we do not have enough resources, or we will run out soon.


If the latter is the case, then it becomes a numbers game, demonstrably provable or disprovable by facts. Do you have any of these, necessitating a swift end to "civilization" or our numbers to extend life for any major reason?

Civilization is born through city states. A country could just be a regrouped set of cities (as they usually are) and so it would be a civilization. Each individual city would require importation of goods from the country side. Let's say that region A can sustain 500 people. That means that 500 people can live in region A without needing to get food from region B or C. They could live together in a village in the centre of region A and live fairly well, not having to import resources from other regions other than that of the village. But if the population was 3 million in region A, then they would require the importation of resources.

My argument isn't just one thing though. I am not solely against the fact that civilization is not sustainable. I'm also against the social inequities that are created by civilization and many, many other things caused by civilization.

One thing that extensive agriculture does is destroy top soil, making it nearly impossible to cultivate on the soil again. One thing that extensive fishing does is create dead zones in the Sea that won't be full of life until another few generations. (Sea, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Nordic Sea, Gulf of Japan, Northern Pacific, Ect). Hunter Gatherer societies or Stone Age agriculture never had those problems and thus had a more sustainable society.

The dust bowel turned lots of farmland into desert like area. We recovered from it in less than 20 years, and that was the worst disaster we had; with things like crop rotations and improved farming techniques, and farming organization as well as subsidies, we created much more efficient farming techniques, that don't deplete the topsoil of it's nutrients, but help add back to it through proper cycles. Overfishing is a very sketchy subject, with not a lot of information behind it; while we can fish a lot in a certain area, fish are relatively mobile, and can travel hundreds of miles in a single migration incident, so depleting one area seems pretty hard; maybe a certain current, but again, sketchy information at best.

But what defines a city state? When does something change from a city to a nation; is it just a name, a geographical area, a certain population, or what? What changes it from a bunch of city states to one giant city; or a "civilization"?

I am not denying any kind of agricultural "improvements". That's not my point. My point is that I'm against extensive farming because of the problems it causes such as desertification, dust bowls and soil destruction. "On the global basis, the soil degradation is caused primarily by overgrazing (35%), agricultural activities (28%), deforestation (30%), overexplotation of land to produce fuelwood (7%), and industrialization (4%)." Source : World resources Institute.
"Over the past 50 years, at the southern edge of the Sahara, an area the size of Somalia has become desert. The same fate now threatens more than one-third of the African continent. The main cause of desertification is not drought, but mismanagement of land, including overgrazing and felling of trees and brushwood for fuel." Source : Global Change, Land Degredation.


"We have discussed some of the major problems in soil degradation. Can degraded soils be restored to full function? This turns out to be a significant problem.

In general lightly degraded soils can be improved by crop rotation, minimum tillage techniques (next lecture), and other farm practices. More severely degraded soils are more difficult to restore.

Moderately damaged land takes more resources than an average farmer has to restore. Changes in soil conservation practices can slow land degradation, but not restore fertility often. National programs will be needed for such lands, requiring major structural change (e.g., draining, contour banks, etc.)

Severely eroded land generally is simply abandoned. Restoration efforts are simply beyond developing countries - requiring deep ditches for drainage, terraces to hold the soil in place, mechanized deep ploughing to remove compaction, reseeding programs, etc. " Source: Ibid.

Lastly, aquatic dead zones are not all that sketchy as a subject at all.
Dead zones do exist because of many reasons. The major reasons are always caused by human activity. (Over Fishing, depletion of oxygen in the ocean, temperature rises, oil spills. ect)

A city state is a city that with its surrounding territory that forms an independent state. I guess if you really want to know what a nation is, I mean, if you really don't know, I suggest you look it up on google since it has little to do with my definition of Civilization. A Civilization is a culture characterized by the growth of cities. Anyone who lives under the same culture would be part of that civilization, regardless if they live in an urban area or alone in the mountains. If they live the same cultural life style as that of the civilized culture which is characterized by cities, they are still civilized, even if they don't live in the cities.

The definition "so as to distinguish them from camps, villages and so on - as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life." does not touch on what importation is. Since the planet is more or less self contained, then we don't import anything, really; importation from where, how far away? 20 blocks away? What counts as importation, what range, and why?

The problem is these things are not definitive science or definitive proven. For instance, these so called dead zones are more or less determined by a handful of scientists, and their impact seems to negligible and concentrated in a few minor areas at best. They say fertilizer run off cause algal blooms which deplete the oxygen in the area, however algae blooms likely would increase oxygen levels, perhaps killing off certain food sources but increasing oxygen, so there's needs to be some other factor they aren't considering if it is the root cause. It seems to change and increase rapidly, year by year by as much as 5 times the amount, that is is the size of the area, so it's not something irreversible or that kills all the fish, since they can just leave and go somewhere else in the ocean and the levels change rapidly and frequently. Many costal areas often have little life, as clear water generally tends to lack nutrients, as compared to murky water, so tropical water by their virtues tend to be devoid of life. Fresh water mixes with salt water, changing salinitylevels to a bit more briny levels, making it harder for certain animals to survive in the awkward, shallow environments. In any case, the listed case is fertilizer run off, and not overfishing, largely concentrated next to the mouths of river, which they claim is a result of fertilizer run off. The dead zones don't extend beyond the coast of most nations even on the map, so they seem to be an insignificant problem.


We recovered from the dust bowel. Fertilizer can be used to put nitrates and other materials back into the ground, and human sewage, that his been cleaned, as well as other things such as cow manure, can be used to help reinrich the soil. Droughts come and go, land becomes usable and not usable sometimes on an annual basis.

Aquaponics can be used without any soil, fertilizer, or even good weather to grow fish, crops, and other things, has about 5 times the density of ordinary foods, uses about 1/10th the water, and produces fish with vitamin B12, lots of protein, and Vitamin D; we wouldn't need to fish as much, and worries with mercury for open ocean fish diminish. Our health would improve, as would food production, perhaps drastically if that was our goal, since it could be grown on roof tops or other areas and produce significantly higher yields than ordinary. You do need to grow fish food, but this is as simple as duckweed or Spirulina, which is incredibly abundant in stagnant water, and rich with vitamins and protein, although largely inedible by humans without lots of preparation (or until turned into fish!)

About 85% of water usage goes to agriculture; with reduced water usage, the ability for everyone to have a farm on their roof is very plausible; in fact, not only this, but it in a greenhouse you could have all year growing in some areas, and keep in much of the moisture and heat, increasing the efficiency even more. In addition, it would cool down houses.



Green people have put taxes on any new coal plants, making them 8 times more expensive than they should be; at first you think, yay, better for the environment! Then you realize that this cements the existing infrastructure in place; our coal plants are over 50 years old, with not a single one younger than this. They generally tend to get 30-35% efficiency, and 90% with modern ones, at the same cost (which is CRAZY, considering that inflation should make it cost more) would cut our coal usage possibly by 2/3rds. Even global warming people say cutting our emissions in half would be enough to allow natural carbon sinks to absorb it all and basically put us in the clear; it also extends our fuel supplies, allowing us to last for hundreds of years. This could potentially lower the price and allow for self sufficiency, which is ideal; with electric prices 3 times cheaper, carbon fiber electric cars, with really long ranges, being super safe, and recharging quickly, becoming fairly cheap and affordable, and thus become a practical option, reducing gasoline usage. Just switching to diesel could cut usage from cars in half, and there's more you can do.

With these coal plants, the new "clean coal" ones, dissolve the pollution into water. This pollution is then fed to algae, which are then turned into ethanol, and then burned inside the reactor. The system creates 0 emissions, and actually increases the efficiency, reducing coal consumption by reusing some of the waste carbon and such. Unlike previous water based filter, the algae or water doesn't need to be dumped, and doesn't increase the price; these were protested. Out of the thousands of coal plants you could protest, these were.


Why? "There's no such thing as clean coal". They are zealots for their cause, not really realizing they support the current infrastructure through their stupidity. Some are likely in cohoots. Solar panels for instance require just as much electricity to produce as they'd put out, or humongous areas to cover, which we really don't have in the U.S. or anywhere really. They work better in the cold, where there's usually less sun, and wear out really quickly in the desert, as well as have variable outputs daily and require lots of batteries.

I personally support the nigh endless power of Thorium, but, even simple solutions are being shot down by well meaning, but stupid people. So, are there alternatives; yes. Are they being talked about; no. If coal ever got any lee way, than their main power source, which ironically depends on coal (solar panels need electricity to be created, and the best ones consume more energy than they produce) wouldn't be picked. So it's blind zealotry a lot of time by the very people trying to persuade you to follow their goals which in the end supports another coal or oil company over the newer one or something that these people tend to support, even if by accident. It is prudent to be mindful of the pseudoscience currently around, that many are presenting as if true fact even if there's little evidence to support it.

[Lorenzaccio]

Suicidesoldier#1

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

I suppose to clarify, what geographic area constitutes a civilization; if an entire country for instance was self contained, and did not need imports, would not be a civilization? If it had it's own farmers and iron ore and oil drillers and was completely self sufficient, as a nation, would this be a civilization; if so, why? It does not import resources from outside it's boundaries, and it is simply bigger than a small city, population and geographic wise. Does a certain size inherently make something a civilization; and if so, is this bad?

Is the crux that your definition is inherently based on numbers and as a result you use that to try to justify your position?


Furthermore, why do we need to end civilization; resources come from somewhere, the planet, and thus all resources are imported. We do not suddenly gain more on the planet by not importing them, so this changes nothing, and if anything, by ignoring these resources, reduces our supply.

If the argument is we will run out of resources, ending civilization will do little than decrease our numbers due to the obvious problems and thus the rate of consumption, and inherently relies on the crux that we do not have enough resources, or we will run out soon.


If the latter is the case, then it becomes a numbers game, demonstrably provable or disprovable by facts. Do you have any of these, necessitating a swift end to "civilization" or our numbers to extend life for any major reason?

Civilization is born through city states. A country could just be a regrouped set of cities (as they usually are) and so it would be a civilization. Each individual city would require importation of goods from the country side. Let's say that region A can sustain 500 people. That means that 500 people can live in region A without needing to get food from region B or C. They could live together in a village in the centre of region A and live fairly well, not having to import resources from other regions other than that of the village. But if the population was 3 million in region A, then they would require the importation of resources.

My argument isn't just one thing though. I am not solely against the fact that civilization is not sustainable. I'm also against the social inequities that are created by civilization and many, many other things caused by civilization.

One thing that extensive agriculture does is destroy top soil, making it nearly impossible to cultivate on the soil again. One thing that extensive fishing does is create dead zones in the Sea that won't be full of life until another few generations. (Sea, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Nordic Sea, Gulf of Japan, Northern Pacific, Ect). Hunter Gatherer societies or Stone Age agriculture never had those problems and thus had a more sustainable society.

The dust bowel turned lots of farmland into desert like area. We recovered from it in less than 20 years, and that was the worst disaster we had; with things like crop rotations and improved farming techniques, and farming organization as well as subsidies, we created much more efficient farming techniques, that don't deplete the topsoil of it's nutrients, but help add back to it through proper cycles. Overfishing is a very sketchy subject, with not a lot of information behind it; while we can fish a lot in a certain area, fish are relatively mobile, and can travel hundreds of miles in a single migration incident, so depleting one area seems pretty hard; maybe a certain current, but again, sketchy information at best.

But what defines a city state? When does something change from a city to a nation; is it just a name, a geographical area, a certain population, or what? What changes it from a bunch of city states to one giant city; or a "civilization"?

I am not denying any kind of agricultural "improvements". That's not my point. My point is that I'm against extensive farming because of the problems it causes such as desertification, dust bowls and soil destruction. "On the global basis, the soil degradation is caused primarily by overgrazing (35%), agricultural activities (28%), deforestation (30%), overexplotation of land to produce fuelwood (7%), and industrialization (4%)." Source : World resources Institute.
"Over the past 50 years, at the southern edge of the Sahara, an area the size of Somalia has become desert. The same fate now threatens more than one-third of the African continent. The main cause of desertification is not drought, but mismanagement of land, including overgrazing and felling of trees and brushwood for fuel." Source : Global Change, Land Degredation.


"We have discussed some of the major problems in soil degradation. Can degraded soils be restored to full function? This turns out to be a significant problem.

In general lightly degraded soils can be improved by crop rotation, minimum tillage techniques (next lecture), and other farm practices. More severely degraded soils are more difficult to restore.

Moderately damaged land takes more resources than an average farmer has to restore. Changes in soil conservation practices can slow land degradation, but not restore fertility often. National programs will be needed for such lands, requiring major structural change (e.g., draining, contour banks, etc.)

Severely eroded land generally is simply abandoned. Restoration efforts are simply beyond developing countries - requiring deep ditches for drainage, terraces to hold the soil in place, mechanized deep ploughing to remove compaction, reseeding programs, etc. " Source: Ibid.

Lastly, aquatic dead zones are not all that sketchy as a subject at all.
Dead zones do exist because of many reasons. The major reasons are always caused by human activity. (Over Fishing, depletion of oxygen in the ocean, temperature rises, oil spills. ect)

A city state is a city that with its surrounding territory that forms an independent state. I guess if you really want to know what a nation is, I mean, if you really don't know, I suggest you look it up on google since it has little to do with my definition of Civilization. A Civilization is a culture characterized by the growth of cities. Anyone who lives under the same culture would be part of that civilization, regardless if they live in an urban area or alone in the mountains. If they live the same cultural life style as that of the civilized culture which is characterized by cities, they are still civilized, even if they don't live in the cities.

The definition "so as to distinguish them from camps, villages and so on - as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life." does not touch on what importation is. Since the planet is more or less self contained, then we don't import anything, really; importation from where, how far away? 20 blocks away? What counts as importation, what range, and why?

The problem is these things are not definitive science or definitive proven. For instance, these so called dead zones are more or less determined by a handful of scientists, and their impact seems to negligible and concentrated in a few minor areas at best. They say fertilizer run off cause algal blooms which deplete the oxygen in the area, however algae blooms likely would increase oxygen levels, perhaps killing off certain food sources but increasing oxygen, so there's needs to be some other factor they aren't considering if it is the root cause. It seems to change and increase rapidly, year by year by as much as 5 times the amount, that is is the size of the area, so it's not something irreversible or that kills all the fish, since they can just leave and go somewhere else in the ocean and the levels change rapidly and frequently. Many costal areas often have little life, as clear water generally tends to lack nutrients, as compared to murky water, so tropical water by their virtues tend to be devoid of life. Fresh water mixes with salt water, changing salinitylevels to a bit more briny levels, making it harder for certain animals to survive in the awkward, shallow environments. In any case, the listed case is fertilizer run off, and not overfishing, largely concentrated next to the mouths of river, which they claim is a result of fertilizer run off. The dead zones don't extend beyond the coast of most nations even on the map, so they seem to be an insignificant problem.


We recovered from the dust bowel. Fertilizer can be used to put nitrates and other materials back into the ground, and human sewage, that his been cleaned, as well as other things such as cow manure, can be used to help reinrich the soil. Droughts come and go, land becomes usable and not usable sometimes on an annual basis.

Aquaponics can be used without any soil, fertilizer, or even good weather to grow fish, crops, and other things, has about 5 times the density of ordinary foods, uses about 1/10th the water, and produces fish with vitamin B12, lots of protein, and Vitamin D; we wouldn't need to fish as much, and worries with mercury for open ocean fish diminish. Our health would improve, as would food production, perhaps drastically if that was our goal, since it could be grown on roof tops or other areas and produce significantly higher yields than ordinary. You do need to grow fish food, but this is as simple as duckweed or Spirulina, which is incredibly abundant in stagnant water, and rich with vitamins and protein, although largely inedible by humans without lots of preparation (or until turned into fish!)

About 85% of water usage goes to agriculture; with reduced water usage, the ability for everyone to have a farm on their roof is very plausible; in fact, not only this, but it in a greenhouse you could have all year growing in some areas, and keep in much of the moisture and heat, increasing the efficiency even more. In addition, it would cool down houses.



Green people have put taxes on any new coal plants, making them 8 times more expensive than they should be; at first you think, yay, better for the environment! Then you realize that this cements the existing infrastructure in place; our coal plants are over 50 years old, with not a single one younger than this. They generally tend to get 30-35% efficiency, and 90% with modern ones, at the same cost (which is CRAZY, considering that inflation should make it cost more) would cut our coal usage possibly by 2/3rds. Even global warming people say cutting our emissions in half would be enough to allow natural carbon sinks to absorb it all and basically put us in the clear; it also extends our fuel supplies, allowing us to last for hundreds of years. This could potentially lower the price and allow for self sufficiency, which is ideal; with electric prices 3 times cheaper, carbon fiber electric cars, with really long ranges, being super safe, and recharging quickly, becoming fairly cheap and affordable, and thus become a practical option, reducing gasoline usage. Just switching to diesel could cut usage from cars in half, and there's more you can do.

With these coal plants, the new "clean coal" ones, dissolve the pollution into water. This pollution is then fed to algae, which are then turned into ethanol, and then burned inside the reactor. The system creates 0 emissions, and actually increases the efficiency, reducing coal consumption by reusing some of the waste carbon and such. Unlike previous water based filter, the algae or water doesn't need to be dumped, and doesn't increase the price; these were protested. Out of the thousands of coal plants you could protest, these were.


Why? "There's no such thing as clean coal". They are zealots for their cause, not really realizing they support the current infrastructure through their stupidity. Some are likely in cohoots. Solar panels for instance require just as much electricity to produce as they'd put out, or humongous areas to cover, which we really don't have in the U.S. or anywhere really. They work better in the cold, where there's usually less sun, and wear out really quickly in the desert, as well as have variable outputs daily and require lots of batteries.

I personally support the nigh endless power of Thorium, but, even simple solutions are being shot down by well meaning, but stupid people. So, are there alternatives; yes. Are they being talked about; no. If coal ever got any lee way, than their main power source, which ironically depends on coal (solar panels need electricity to be created, and the best ones consume more energy than they produce) wouldn't be picked. So it's blind zealotry a lot of time by the very people trying to persuade you to follow their goals which in the end supports another coal or oil company over the newer one or something that these people tend to support, even if by accident. It is prudent to be mindful of the pseudoscience currently around, that many are presenting as if true fact even if there's little evidence to support it.

I've explained it to you when I did my example with region A, B and C.

But I thank you challenging it, it keeps the mind at work, right?

Let's go through it together.

"I would define a civilization much more precisely, and I believe more usefully, as a culture—that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts— that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin civitatis, meaning city-state),"

- Civilization is a type of culture that is both the consequence and the cause of Civilization. It is a type of culture, first and foremost, one that is driven to and drives to the growth of cities.

"...with cities being defined—so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on—as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life."

- I see you're point. I haven't defined importation. Thank you for bringing that up. To first think about importation I have to think about it is. Google tells us that importation is the commercial activity of buying and bringing in goods from a foreign country. And the etymology of importation comes from the word importo ( to bring from abroad. ).
Now, less say that importation is the act of bringing in something (or someone) that isn't native and/or local. Bringing is just the act of transportation. The causes of the bringing could be violent, commercial or other. Thus a Tolowa village five hundred years ago in Tu’nes (meadow long in the Tolowa tongue), now called Crescent City, California, would not have been a city, since the Tolowa ate native and local salmon, clams, deer, huckleberries, and so on, and had no need to bring in food from outside of their local/ native region/ immediate surroundings. Thus, under my definition, the Tolowa, because their way of living was not characterized by the growth of city-states, would not have been civilized.

They are proven. If you will say such things, I would appreciate it if you gave me sources, since I have already given you sources to disprove what you have just said. The UN consider it a major problem both economically and ecologically.

Yes, some of the processes are natural, some lakes grow and shrink over cycles that can last up to 100 years and some ecologists like to say that it's because of human activity; which it isn't. I'm being honest here, and I know that certain droughts can be naturally caused, certain mudslides can be naturally caused, certain hurricanes can be naturally caused. But they can be caused by human activity, and lately the amount of human caused ecological disasters has increased - from the deforestation of the Middle East by the Early Babylonians, to the petrol leak in the Gulf of Mexico caused by BP.
Some mass extinctions are caused by nature too, such as the one that happened 65 million years ago. But that doesn't excuse the fact that this is a mass extinction that we are causing, it is a man made extinction. 200 species go extinct every day and if we carry on the way we are going we may create the worst ecocide and genocide ever on Earth. Sure, Children died naturally from shocks and falls in the wild; that doesn't mean we should start pushing kids off cliffs. That attitude doesn't make any sense.
Also, to those who would say that there is no point in taking away Civilization now, since it's likely to just come back later, that's insane. If a house was burning down, and a person said "I won't help stop the fire, since it's likely to catch fire again in another ten years", that guy would be a pretty unliked person, I'm sure. Plus it makes no sense. We're going to die eventually, that doesn't mean that we should start doing unhealthy activities or poisoning our bodies with Mc Donalds, or Nitrates.


We could talk about all of these things, sure, but the main point of my OP was to attack a way of thinking, and you haven't tried to refute it yet.

[Dieu des hommes]

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

Okay, but why do we need to end civilization?

Don't jump to conclusions just yet.

I haven't said in this thread that we need to destroy civilization; I asked what are we going to do about it. I actually speak of a way of thinking a lot more than I do of civilization.

We are going to do nothing about it.

[Suicidesoldier#1]

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

I suppose to clarify, what geographic area constitutes a civilization; if an entire country for instance was self contained, and did not need imports, would not be a civilization? If it had it's own farmers and iron ore and oil drillers and was completely self sufficient, as a nation, would this be a civilization; if so, why? It does not import resources from outside it's boundaries, and it is simply bigger than a small city, population and geographic wise. Does a certain size inherently make something a civilization; and if so, is this bad?

Is the crux that your definition is inherently based on numbers and as a result you use that to try to justify your position?


Furthermore, why do we need to end civilization; resources come from somewhere, the planet, and thus all resources are imported. We do not suddenly gain more on the planet by not importing them, so this changes nothing, and if anything, by ignoring these resources, reduces our supply.

If the argument is we will run out of resources, ending civilization will do little than decrease our numbers due to the obvious problems and thus the rate of consumption, and inherently relies on the crux that we do not have enough resources, or we will run out soon.


If the latter is the case, then it becomes a numbers game, demonstrably provable or disprovable by facts. Do you have any of these, necessitating a swift end to "civilization" or our numbers to extend life for any major reason?

Civilization is born through city states. A country could just be a regrouped set of cities (as they usually are) and so it would be a civilization. Each individual city would require importation of goods from the country side. Let's say that region A can sustain 500 people. That means that 500 people can live in region A without needing to get food from region B or C. They could live together in a village in the centre of region A and live fairly well, not having to import resources from other regions other than that of the village. But if the population was 3 million in region A, then they would require the importation of resources.

My argument isn't just one thing though. I am not solely against the fact that civilization is not sustainable. I'm also against the social inequities that are created by civilization and many, many other things caused by civilization.

One thing that extensive agriculture does is destroy top soil, making it nearly impossible to cultivate on the soil again. One thing that extensive fishing does is create dead zones in the Sea that won't be full of life until another few generations. (Sea, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Nordic Sea, Gulf of Japan, Northern Pacific, Ect). Hunter Gatherer societies or Stone Age agriculture never had those problems and thus had a more sustainable society.

The dust bowel turned lots of farmland into desert like area. We recovered from it in less than 20 years, and that was the worst disaster we had; with things like crop rotations and improved farming techniques, and farming organization as well as subsidies, we created much more efficient farming techniques, that don't deplete the topsoil of it's nutrients, but help add back to it through proper cycles. Overfishing is a very sketchy subject, with not a lot of information behind it; while we can fish a lot in a certain area, fish are relatively mobile, and can travel hundreds of miles in a single migration incident, so depleting one area seems pretty hard; maybe a certain current, but again, sketchy information at best.

But what defines a city state? When does something change from a city to a nation; is it just a name, a geographical area, a certain population, or what? What changes it from a bunch of city states to one giant city; or a "civilization"?

I am not denying any kind of agricultural "improvements". That's not my point. My point is that I'm against extensive farming because of the problems it causes such as desertification, dust bowls and soil destruction. "On the global basis, the soil degradation is caused primarily by overgrazing (35%), agricultural activities (28%), deforestation (30%), overexplotation of land to produce fuelwood (7%), and industrialization (4%)." Source : World resources Institute.
"Over the past 50 years, at the southern edge of the Sahara, an area the size of Somalia has become desert. The same fate now threatens more than one-third of the African continent. The main cause of desertification is not drought, but mismanagement of land, including overgrazing and felling of trees and brushwood for fuel." Source : Global Change, Land Degredation.


"We have discussed some of the major problems in soil degradation. Can degraded soils be restored to full function? This turns out to be a significant problem.

In general lightly degraded soils can be improved by crop rotation, minimum tillage techniques (next lecture), and other farm practices. More severely degraded soils are more difficult to restore.

Moderately damaged land takes more resources than an average farmer has to restore. Changes in soil conservation practices can slow land degradation, but not restore fertility often. National programs will be needed for such lands, requiring major structural change (e.g., draining, contour banks, etc.)

Severely eroded land generally is simply abandoned. Restoration efforts are simply beyond developing countries - requiring deep ditches for drainage, terraces to hold the soil in place, mechanized deep ploughing to remove compaction, reseeding programs, etc. " Source: Ibid.

Lastly, aquatic dead zones are not all that sketchy as a subject at all.
Dead zones do exist because of many reasons. The major reasons are always caused by human activity. (Over Fishing, depletion of oxygen in the ocean, temperature rises, oil spills. ect)

A city state is a city that with its surrounding territory that forms an independent state. I guess if you really want to know what a nation is, I mean, if you really don't know, I suggest you look it up on google since it has little to do with my definition of Civilization. A Civilization is a culture characterized by the growth of cities. Anyone who lives under the same culture would be part of that civilization, regardless if they live in an urban area or alone in the mountains. If they live the same cultural life style as that of the civilized culture which is characterized by cities, they are still civilized, even if they don't live in the cities.

The definition "so as to distinguish them from camps, villages and so on - as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life." does not touch on what importation is. Since the planet is more or less self contained, then we don't import anything, really; importation from where, how far away? 20 blocks away? What counts as importation, what range, and why?

The problem is these things are not definitive science or definitive proven. For instance, these so called dead zones are more or less determined by a handful of scientists, and their impact seems to negligible and concentrated in a few minor areas at best. They say fertilizer run off cause algal blooms which deplete the oxygen in the area, however algae blooms likely would increase oxygen levels, perhaps killing off certain food sources but increasing oxygen, so there's needs to be some other factor they aren't considering if it is the root cause. It seems to change and increase rapidly, year by year by as much as 5 times the amount, that is is the size of the area, so it's not something irreversible or that kills all the fish, since they can just leave and go somewhere else in the ocean and the levels change rapidly and frequently. Many costal areas often have little life, as clear water generally tends to lack nutrients, as compared to murky water, so tropical water by their virtues tend to be devoid of life. Fresh water mixes with salt water, changing salinitylevels to a bit more briny levels, making it harder for certain animals to survive in the awkward, shallow environments. In any case, the listed case is fertilizer run off, and not overfishing, largely concentrated next to the mouths of river, which they claim is a result of fertilizer run off. The dead zones don't extend beyond the coast of most nations even on the map, so they seem to be an insignificant problem.


We recovered from the dust bowel. Fertilizer can be used to put nitrates and other materials back into the ground, and human sewage, that his been cleaned, as well as other things such as cow manure, can be used to help reinrich the soil. Droughts come and go, land becomes usable and not usable sometimes on an annual basis.

Aquaponics can be used without any soil, fertilizer, or even good weather to grow fish, crops, and other things, has about 5 times the density of ordinary foods, uses about 1/10th the water, and produces fish with vitamin B12, lots of protein, and Vitamin D; we wouldn't need to fish as much, and worries with mercury for open ocean fish diminish. Our health would improve, as would food production, perhaps drastically if that was our goal, since it could be grown on roof tops or other areas and produce significantly higher yields than ordinary. You do need to grow fish food, but this is as simple as duckweed or Spirulina, which is incredibly abundant in stagnant water, and rich with vitamins and protein, although largely inedible by humans without lots of preparation (or until turned into fish!)

About 85% of water usage goes to agriculture; with reduced water usage, the ability for everyone to have a farm on their roof is very plausible; in fact, not only this, but it in a greenhouse you could have all year growing in some areas, and keep in much of the moisture and heat, increasing the efficiency even more. In addition, it would cool down houses.



Green people have put taxes on any new coal plants, making them 8 times more expensive than they should be; at first you think, yay, better for the environment! Then you realize that this cements the existing infrastructure in place; our coal plants are over 50 years old, with not a single one younger than this. They generally tend to get 30-35% efficiency, and 90% with modern ones, at the same cost (which is CRAZY, considering that inflation should make it cost more) would cut our coal usage possibly by 2/3rds. Even global warming people say cutting our emissions in half would be enough to allow natural carbon sinks to absorb it all and basically put us in the clear; it also extends our fuel supplies, allowing us to last for hundreds of years. This could potentially lower the price and allow for self sufficiency, which is ideal; with electric prices 3 times cheaper, carbon fiber electric cars, with really long ranges, being super safe, and recharging quickly, becoming fairly cheap and affordable, and thus become a practical option, reducing gasoline usage. Just switching to diesel could cut usage from cars in half, and there's more you can do.

With these coal plants, the new "clean coal" ones, dissolve the pollution into water. This pollution is then fed to algae, which are then turned into ethanol, and then burned inside the reactor. The system creates 0 emissions, and actually increases the efficiency, reducing coal consumption by reusing some of the waste carbon and such. Unlike previous water based filter, the algae or water doesn't need to be dumped, and doesn't increase the price; these were protested. Out of the thousands of coal plants you could protest, these were.


Why? "There's no such thing as clean coal". They are zealots for their cause, not really realizing they support the current infrastructure through their stupidity. Some are likely in cohoots. Solar panels for instance require just as much electricity to produce as they'd put out, or humongous areas to cover, which we really don't have in the U.S. or anywhere really. They work better in the cold, where there's usually less sun, and wear out really quickly in the desert, as well as have variable outputs daily and require lots of batteries.

I personally support the nigh endless power of Thorium, but, even simple solutions are being shot down by well meaning, but stupid people. So, are there alternatives; yes. Are they being talked about; no. If coal ever got any lee way, than their main power source, which ironically depends on coal (solar panels need electricity to be created, and the best ones consume more energy than they produce) wouldn't be picked. So it's blind zealotry a lot of time by the very people trying to persuade you to follow their goals which in the end supports another coal or oil company over the newer one or something that these people tend to support, even if by accident. It is prudent to be mindful of the pseudoscience currently around, that many are presenting as if true fact even if there's little evidence to support it.

I've explained it to you when I did my example with region A, B and C.

But I thank you challenging it, it keeps the mind at work, right?

Let's go through it together.

"I would define a civilization much more precisely, and I believe more usefully, as a culture—that is, a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts— that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities (civilization, see civil: from civis, meaning citizen, from Latin civitatis, meaning city-state),"

- Civilization is a type of culture that is both the consequence and the cause of Civilization. It is a type of culture, first and foremost, one that is driven to and drives to the growth of cities.

"...with cities being defined—so as to distinguish them from camps, villages, and so on—as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life."

- I see you're point. I haven't defined importation. Thank you for bringing that up. To first think about importation I have to think about it is. Google tells us that importation is the commercial activity of buying and bringing in goods from a foreign country. And the etymology of importation comes from the word importo ( to bring from abroad. ).
Now, less say that importation is the act of bringing in something (or someone) that isn't native and/or local. Bringing is just the act of transportation. The causes of the bringing could be violent, commercial or other. Thus a Tolowa village five hundred years ago in Tu’nes (meadow long in the Tolowa tongue), now called Crescent City, California, would not have been a city, since the Tolowa ate native and local salmon, clams, deer, huckleberries, and so on, and had no need to bring in food from outside of their local/ native region/ immediate surroundings. Thus, under my definition, the Tolowa, because their way of living was not characterized by the growth of city-states, would not have been civilized.

They are proven. If you will say such things, I would appreciate it if you gave me sources, since I have already given you sources to disprove what you have just said. The UN consider it a major problem both economically and ecologically.

Yes, some of the processes are natural, some lakes grow and shrink over cycles that can last up to 100 years and some ecologists like to say that it's because of human activity; which it isn't. I'm being honest here, and I know that certain droughts can be naturally caused, certain mudslides can be naturally caused, certain hurricanes can be naturally caused. But they can be caused by human activity, and lately the amount of human caused ecological disasters has increased - from the deforestation of the Middle East by the Early Babylonians, to the petrol leak in the Gulf of Mexico caused by BP.
Some mass extinctions are caused by nature too, such as the one that happened 65 million years ago. But that doesn't excuse the fact that this is a mass extinction that we are causing, it is a man made extinction. 200 species go extinct every day and if we carry on the way we are going we may create the worst ecocide and genocide ever on Earth. Sure, Children died naturally from shocks and falls in the wild; that doesn't mean we should start pushing kids off cliffs. That attitude doesn't make any sense.
Also, to those who would say that there is no point in taking away Civilization now, since it's likely to just come back later, that's insane. If a house was burning down, and a person said "I won't help stop the fire, since it's likely to catch fire again in another ten years", that guy would be a pretty unliked person, I'm sure. Plus it makes no sense. We're going to die eventually, that doesn't mean that we should start doing unhealthy activities or poisoning our bodies with Mc Donalds, or Nitrates.


We could talk about all of these things, sure, but the main point of my OP was to attack a way of thinking, and you haven't tried to refute it yet.

The way of thinking that we are going to die one day, or trying to have many kids?

But, sure, what is it you're trying to say, more concisely, if possible? The state of mind is one of have more kids, balloon up; spread your genes/culture in as large as numbers as possible, simply by making more people, envelope the earth in raw numbers? That's how the best civilizations succeed? What about it?


My next question is, what's native? Native to earth; to what geological area does something become native to; in other words, if my oil comes from, Texas, within the U.S., but I were to live in, Colorado, would that be native to the U.S.; or if it came from the middle east, would that be native to the earth? Would it coming from mars be "native" since it's my solar system? As soon as you define a geological radius of native you've already defined how big a society can be based on an arbitrary number or figure.

It's an interesting "idea", but it has little backing behind it.


The central concept to your idea is that civilization is bad; you assume that we are destroying our environment and it's irreversible, hard to change, or that civilization couldn't lead to a better solution, like fusion power or aquaponics or lab grown meat or something, that would completely remove the need to farm and mine all together. These are examples, but new power sources and food methods are available.

The entirety of space is there, and unused. We can basically turn any matter into energy or other matter, and we even have pretty much all we could ever ask for on other planets in our own solar system. Would this be an import; let's say it is. The carrying capacity of the earth isn't dependent on the grass and the trees and how much produce they generate, but a system of energy and matter, necessary to run the human body. There's more than an earth's masses worth of fuel in Jupiter. An entire earth of pure fusion power; this is an incalculable amount of energy. Potentially quadrillion x quadrillion x quadrillions of years worth of energy.


If civilization is really sustained by imports, then when society or civilization, progresses, enough, say in 50 to 100 years, we'll have expanded to the stars, and eventually, be sustained by them.

Since the universe has, maybe, 14 billion years left before a thermodynamic collapse, or it will start recycling itself, and Jupiter could provide nigh limitless energy, let alone if we started to harvest energy just by having something closer to the sun... there is the potential for nearly unlimited power and mass, at least within our potential timespan for life in the universe, even in our solar system, and thus the ability to live as wastefully as we want. So, yes, there is the potential, with a sufficiently advanced society, even in the hundreds of billions, to import things from, space, the entire rest of the universe, and still survive comfortably.


I guess, civilization itself is the resolution to scarcity. It creates technology, technology advances sufficiently, technology creates a post scarcity utopia. Problem solved.

[Lorenzaccio]

Dieu des hommes

Lorenzaccio

Suicidesoldier#1

Okay, but why do we need to end civilization?

Don't jump to conclusions just yet.

I haven't said in this thread that we need to destroy civilization; I asked what are we going to do about it. I actually speak of a way of thinking a lot more than I do of civilization.

We are going to do nothing about it.

Why won't you do anything about it?

[gin and puff 2]

Lorenzaccio

Our greatest issue is probably our perception of the world, for it is our perception of the world that has created civilization.

s**t, man. That's deep, blood.

[Dieu des hommes]

Lorenzaccio

Why won't you do anything about it?

There is no reason to do anything about it.