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[SaberToothTiger]

Now execute me if I'm wrong, but I think that the reason that the birth rates are lower than they used to is because children used to be a guarantee that you won't fuckin' starve when you're fifty and have both of your arms ripped off in the factory. When Bismarck-boy slammed his sexy-ass state pensions on the table the role of taking care of the elderly started shifting away from kids and towards the state. When children became less and less of a profit and more and more of a cost, it was economical not to make babby.

And I gotta agree with wierd here - people are unhappy cunts now, and the fact that you have an I-Phone instead of a Nokia doesn't mean you're happier. The HDI means jack shit when everyone is worrying about their avocado toad toast and can't afford to make babby. Sure he has more in comparison to what he had 10 years ago

at this point i stopped bothering about post that stopped shitposting and started being shitty posting

[smjjames]

Anyways, short of an apocalyptic global war or some super-disease that wipes out 6 billion people in one go, reducing population isn't going to do anything about climate change on a reasonable timescale.

[Il Palazzo]

...but, I wanted to hear more about Cosby's wayward semen!

[Il Palazzo]

I'd be more worried about him throwing quaaludes into the Gulf Stream. That'd surely shut it down.

[smjjames]

You can talk about it in the context of a hypothetical scenario where he ejaculated into the jet stream.

I'd be more worried about him throwing quaaludes into the Gulf Stream. That'd surely shut it down.

lol XD

The only solutions to completely reverse climate change at this point that I've heard of involve effectively megaprojects on a civilization scale. Stuff like converting all but the essentials of the economies to doing one thing, collecting carbon dioxide and storing it and EVERYBODY has to do it, no exceptions. And you've seen how difficult it can be to get everybody in the world to agree and focus completely on a singular goal without exception. Though I guess the exception to that would be an incoming asteroid since everybody is screwed in that case.

The more reasonable stuff to help against global warming are stuff like cloud seeding, algae farming, and some out there-ish ideas.

Though really, the most effective thing to do right now is to focus on renewables and wean off of CO2 producing fossil fuel energy sources since that's the only thing that both is a. won't absolutely wreck the economy and b. isn't so far out that it would need time to determine the effectiveness, time that we don't exactly have.

[Il Palazzo]

C2O producing fossil fuel energy sources

Ooh. Sounds like a risky business.

[smjjames]

C2O producing fossil fuel energy sources

Ooh. Sounds like a risky business.

Oops, thanks for pointing that out.

[SalmonGod]

There's no getting around the fact that Ungoliant has to die, though.  Even if we manage to avert climate catastrophe and the oceans suffocating on plastic, the two things that I can see theoretically being solved by tech/science magic bullet without requiring the death of capitalism, the profit motive will still continue to devour everything.  Even if populations stabilize or dwindle, it will still continue to devour everything.  De-forestation and mass extinction from pollution, over-harvesting, and loss of habitat will do us in as surely as climate change.  Because of the economic growth mandate, which relies on increasing consumption, which relies on increasing production, which relies on harvesting and processing more resources, every fiscal quarter until the end of time.  If it doesn't end by choice, it will end by devouring itself.  That end is relatively not far off.

Unless anyone really thinks that expanding into space is going to solve that problem, which is a sentiment I encounter enough.  I consider that magical thinking and absurdity that anyone will consider terraforming other planets on a short time-scale before entertaining the idea that maybe organizing our society around enriching shareholders isn't really so great.

[smjjames]

I wonder if Tolkien really meant Ungoliant to be a personification of capitalism. Though since it seems to be a personification of greed, so, it's not too hard to make the leap in interpretation.

Not sure I can envision a space based economy (or rather the more advanced stuff like asteroid mining bases and all that) without some form of capitalism, or maybe there just aren't all that many sci fi stuff that actually try to do it without capitalism. Money will still be used in some form (even in the decidedly utopiaistic Star Trek universe, though we see incredibly little in the way of day to day life except perhaps in DS9) because it's just too useful.

Anyways, increased automation, while in the short term would actually benefit capitalism, is in the long term bad for it because it requires everybody get cash, but if nobody is working.... Thus, automation more than anything else will be the downfall of capitalism in it's current form.

[Reelya]

What Tolkien hated was modernity itself, not just capitalism. The Shire and similar represent the agrarian past, which Tolkien idealized. The bad forces represent the industrial revolution. Sure, capitalism is related to that, but Tolkien was no socialist. He uses the word "Wizards" (and "descendants of Saruman") for the bad guys in the real world. He means technocrats in general, basically anyone who uses modern industry or technology to project power over other people.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/noble-smith/jrr-tolkien-reveals-the-t_b_5373529.html

[EnigmaticHat]

Tolkien specifically hated the industrial revolution and wanted to go back to a simpler, agrarian time.  I'd say The Two Towers most purely represents the themes of LoTR.  The other two books mix the overall themes with... well both books have their own different thing going on.

-snip-

Oh don't even get me started.  Bringing resources back to Earth is nice and all but with the timescale + difficulties + cost of entry its not going to fundamentally change our situation.  Leaving Earth... geez.  You can get a small population out, and everyone else now has to suffer through the consequences and waste of whatever method they used to overcome Earth's gravity.  And reaching orbit is the easiest part of the problem.

People think with all our technology we don't need the land any more.  They're wrong; if we were immune to the realities of nature we'd be off building cities in the Sahara Desert.  We take for granted our livable environment, (functionally) free energy, and abundant natural resources.  So most people don't understand just how much effort it is to survive with nothing.  Basically for every population out living somewhere uninhabitable, you need an exponentially larger population living somewhere inhabitable.  Let's go back to our city in the Sahara Desert.  It could work, but you'd need many other equally sized cities creating the resources needed to survive and sending them out there.  And that's on Earth.

[Reelya]

That Sahara desert point is a really good counterpoint to the idea that we're just going to blast everyone off to live in self-sufficient space colonies. Build the same colonies in desert areas, much cheaper, you get breathable air for free.

[wierd]

Different material requirements.  In space, you have to deal with tortional stresses and radiation induced embrittlement.

In the Sahara, you have to deal with thermal stresses (extremes in day and night), abrasive damage (wind whipped sand), and wind force damages.

True, you get useful atmosphere for free, and dont have to deal with airlocks except for moisture retention control-- but you have the same problems you would have on mars with abrasive particles, and lung issues.

[SalmonGod]

Still makes the intended point, though.

[wierd]

Indeed, but the hypothetical was "We have magical free energy, and magical free mass" to go along with that--- in space, you have literally infinite volume to expand into.   Assuming the first two, the difficulties of the space habitat are not insurmountable, and any garbage you MIGHT create can be dealt with reasonably effectively by dropping it into a star, or into a gas giant.

Since the universe says "not only no, but HELL NO, and fuck you too!" about those two things, Indeed--- the Sahara is a much better option, if for no other reason that it is at least plausible.

Likewise with deep ocean habitats (which would be VERY similar to space habitats, but with better resource availability), and the like.

The "Conflict over space" thing is what causes habitat destruction in the first place.  As far as we know, nothing lives in space that would be adversely affected by a human scrapheap floating in it.  There are things that live in the Sahara, there are things that live on the ocean floor, etc.  Any place humans decide they can expand to will put living pressure on a biosphere here on earth, since every square inch of it is habitat to some lifeform or another.

This was kinda the point I was making about Chernobyl;  The radiation was literally "It will kill you with cancer if you try to live there" in the area just around the reactor at the time of the image I shared; Satellite imagery shows thick forests less than 1km away from ground zero of the disaster, and many people attest that these irradiated forests are home to a wide variety of wildlife.  The radiation is less detrimental to the biosphere than human activity is.  After they installed the new sarcophagus, the radiation levels are much more reasonable in the area, but the image was taken in 2007, and shows ADULT tree forest just a short distance from the site-- meaning the forest was growing just fine in the heavy radiation.