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[wierd]

The magic bullet is global war on an unprecedented scale.

Remove the factories, and the people who depend on the factories, and the pollution stops.
Destroy the economic systems that drive the "need" to poison the planet, and that "need" goes away.
Destroy the infrastructures that allow people to ignore the radically changing climate, and force them back into the realm of the natural world, and suddenly they care a whole lot more.

It's the fastest way to get there.

It also happens to be unspeakably evil.  Pick a poison it seems.

[Egan_BW]

A massive global war would probably also break the internet, and that would just be a shame~

What we really need is an external threat. Ethereals, where are you?

[wierd]

If nukes or bioweapons are used-- maybe.

If it is fought with cyber-type weapons that deny industrial utility, with conventional bombs (like bunker busters), tanks, airplanes, and warships... perhaps not so much.  The damage is mostly the same as that done by constructing a city. Nature is very resilient, and rapidly expands into any freshly reopened area.

See for instance, the greenery that has taken over pripyat.


That area is radioactive as hell.  Green trees, animals and birds all over.

Even *IF* nukes and biologicals were deployed, it would only make life more difficult, not impossible, as the image above clearly illustrates. (In case you did not know, Pripyat is in the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and is one of several completely abandoned cities because the radiation contamination and fallout of the burning Chernobyl power plant made the area too radioactive for human habitation. It is still too radioactive for human habitation. Despite this, yeah--- Trees, birds, insects, deer-- even apex predators like wolves live there, and seem to be thriving.

It should be a big wakeup to many folks--- HUMAN ACTIVITY is a bigger threat to the biosphere and ecosystem than systemic radiological contamination is.  Take that in.

[Egan_BW]

All with only a small incidence of horrifying mutation!

[SalmonGod]

I don't think there will be any technological magic bullet.  We may find one for climate.  Maybe one for ocean plastics.  But those are only two of many critical, accelerating problems.

The real magic bullet is the one which slays Ungoliant.  There's no way for the endless hunger of profit growth-driven economics to function as it does without also consuming everything to self-destruction.

We must abandon short-term profit as the daily imperative everyone is forced to live by.  When some businessman or paid-for politician makes some decision that will directly harm some innocent person, increase strain on the workforce, or risk damage to the environment for the sake of an extra half percentage point on the next quarterly report, they need to be met with overwhelming unified hostility from everyone who notices.  There is soooooooo much that could be done better.  The only reason it's not is because it would cost some powerful decision-maker money, and part of what those people decide as a collective class is who gets to have a livelihood and who doesn't.  If we can turn that dynamic around, the world can heal.  Seriously.  But it requires such a fundamental reversal of our lifestyle and culture.

[smjjames]

Unless it's a cyberwar, but that could also break the internet if enough damage is done.

Also, I know you're just being facietous or something wierd, but stopping the factories won't stop the warming from happening, which isn't a reason to go and blow pollution like a mofo either.

If nukes or bioweapons are used-- maybe.

If it is fought with cyber-type weapons that deny industrial utility, with conventional bombs (like bunker busters), tanks, airplanes, and warships... perhaps not so much.  The damage is mostly the same as that done by constructing a city. Nature is very resilient, and rapidly expands into any freshly reopened area.

See for instance, the greenery that has taken over pripyat.


That area is radioactive as hell.  Green trees, animals and birds all over.

Pretty amazing how quickly nature takes over when we stop pushing it back. Or go look at abandoned buildings in Detroit. The deep inner cities will take longer, but nature will reclaim it eventually.

[PTTG??]

I disagree. I don't know the solution, but I know it must exist. Making sure that every human being has water, food, shelter, energy, medicine, and education is fundamentally a logistics problem; there is no real shortage of any of those things (and more education provides more medicine, funnily enough). Doing it without unbalancing the natural machine is an engineering problem, as the science is already done on doing so, and again it is quite feasible.

It might take a revolution, but it need not be a bloody one to achieve its ends. The problem, of course, is that the 4-5% of the global population that stands to lose from such an arrangement are essentially dragons, and see any equalization as theft of their private hoard. Many are willing to kill to protect their gold; many more are willing to lie, cheat, and steal.

All this talk about global war would kill the peasants and leave the dragons unharmed.

[smjjames]

And leaving the dragons deprived of any more gold to hoard or peasants to terrify. War really isn't a true total win-lose, just that one side loses less than the other, and sometimes the winner comes off worse in the end either way.

[SalmonGod]

All this talk about global war would kill the peasants and leave the dragons unharmed.

Yeah, I agree.  The only positive outcome I can imagine is one where a massive cultural shift results in the vast majority of the population ceasing to recognize the authority of the dragon-class (I still like referring to them collectively as Ungoliant).  Stop even agreeing that their hoards belong to them.  We only agree to treat the contents of their hoard as theirs because it's all subject to their control on paper, which they paradoxically use their hoard to exert inordinate influence over drafting.

[wierd]

PTTG:

There's a problem. 

Humans like to make babies when they feel really comfortable/prosperous.

When your calculus is "X finite resources must be supplied to an uncapped and growing population", the calculus becomes a spectrum, rather than a target, starting at "Everyone gets everything they need and then some" and ending at "Everyone is systemically impoverised when equally distributed-- some people live good while others die of neglect when unequally distributed."

The population growth will level out with resource availablitly, with people living in "adequate but not great" conditions due to increased mortality rates from the lack of resources eventually, but that is in contravention of the stated goal of everyone getting quality needs met.

That is assuming that needs remains a static target as well-- it is not. Energy needs per person has skyrocketed in the past century to astronomical levels.

This is a logistics problem where the premise denies a solution.  Modern living is unsustainable, systemically, barring some kind of miracle technology that allows construction and habitations on biosphere-less areas that are not in competition with the natural biosphere, and where all human waste products are perfectly recycled, and where there is infinite room to expand in.

In short, we would need to find a way to produce matter and energy from nothing, then move into outer space.

[wierd]

All this talk about global war would kill the peasants and leave the dragons unharmed.

Yeah, I agree.  The only positive outcome I can imagine is one where a massive cultural shift results in the vast majority of the population ceasing to recognize the authority of the dragon-class (I still like referring to them collectively as Ungoliant).  Stop even agreeing that their hoards belong to them.  We only agree to treat the contents of their hoard as theirs because it's all subject to their control on paper, which they paradoxically use their hoard to exert inordinate influence over drafting.

The power of the power elite, is the power to convince people to empower them.  Really, that's it.  They are no more powerful than that when you stop giving them your strong arms, your productivity, your creativity, and your loyalty.

If they lose the power to convince people, they dry up and die.  Why do you think they are masters of propaganda, and have cornered the market on news, and seek desperately to corner the markets on information the internet age enabled?  If there is an active conspiracy, it is that of dominating and controlling the internet for private interests.

[SalmonGod]

True that we also need to limit population growth.  But... that also ties into the economics thing.  Because the pressure to reproduce is partially driven by concerns over increasing numbers of laborers and consumers being necessary to drive increasing numbers of $$$ moving around on spreadsheets.  It's wouldn't completely cover what's needed, but removing that aspect would help somewhat.

[smjjames]

PTTG:

There's a problem. 

Humans like to make babies when they feel really comfortable/prosperous.

Doesn't explain falling birthrates in Europe and most of the world, so, the hedonistic when comfortable/prosperous doesn't hold up. It's true that there is a spike when times are good or right after a period of hardship ends, but if you look, that seriously doesn't hold up.

ninja'd by ispil, but I'm reinforcing his argument.

[Egan_BW]

Simple. Edit out human desire to reproduce entirely, print more humans when needed.

[wierd]

PTTG:

There's a problem. 

Humans like to make babies when they feel really comfortable/prosperous.

When your calculus is "X finite resources must be supplied to an uncapped and growing population", the calculus becomes a spectrum, rather than a target, starting at "Everyone gets everything they need and then some" and ending at "Everyone is systemically impoverised when equally distributed-- some people live good while others die of neglect when unequally distributed."

The population growth will level out with resource availablitly, with people living in "adequate but not great" conditions due to increased mortality rates from the lack of resources eventually, but that is in contravention of the stated goal of everyone getting quality needs met.

That is assuming that needs remains a static target as well-- it is not. Energy needs per person has skyrocketed in the past century to astronomical levels.

This is a logistics problem where the premise denies a solution.  Modern living is unsustainable, systemically, barring some kind of miracle technology that allows construction and habitations on biosphere-less areas that are not in competition with the natural biosphere, and where all human waste products are perfectly recycled, and where there is infinite room to expand in.

In short, we would need to find a way to produce matter and energy from nothing, then move into outer space.

And yet birth rates are declining despite increasing feelings of prosperity.

The main factor is that quality of life has DIMINISHED-- People have material goods, but they LACK TIME. People spend close to 100% of their time being "Productive", and so, do not spend time making babies, because they are too drained in every capacity to even have sex, or to even contemplate making babies.

Even rabbit populations have an upper-bound where intra-colony stresses cause female infertility.

Again, the stated goal implies quality of life.  That is not an attainable target when resources are finite.