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[Ulfarr]

It is still more efficient to use electric cars than to drive internal combustion engines.  By a pretty significant margin.

I never disputed that*. The problem is that any reduction achieved from swapping to electric cars is going to be nullified due to population growth (and don't start again with the cotrolling the population nonsense). Even if we swapped to electric cars overnight, we'll get what? 5 years? 10 years? Global population is growing at ~ 80 million people/year, eventually we would get back to the same levels of pollution. As I said electric cars are a step in the right direction but as long as we rely on combustion technologies for our energy needs the problem will persist.

* I did dispute the validity of that article you posted, for being the biased garbage pile of misinformation that it is.

[wierd]

Probably true...  Media bias is difficult to correct for without it being brought to attention.  Thank you.


Re Ulfar:

The problem with population growth in response to efficiency is that the population *WILL* eventually go down, because mother nature does not give two shits about how much it makes your butt hurt to think about it.  Either humans can do it themselves, and not take the planet out with them, OR mother nature can do it, after humans consume everything like locusts.  Either way, the contraction WILL happen.

[Reelya]

Reducing population isn't hard. You can even just encourage people to have kids later, and the stable population level will go down, even if every couple still has the same number of kids.

EDIT i.e. if everyone has 2 kids around the age of 20 and lives to 80 then you have 4 overlapping generations, but if you have kids at ~27 instead and live the same length then you only have 3 overlapping generations. If we improve fertility treatments that could actually have the paradoxical effect of lowering population, since if a woman can wait until she's 40 to have kids then less will be in a hurry to have kids because of the "ticking clock". Then, even if every woman had two kids, the result would be about half the stable population compared to when people had kids around 20.

[MrRoboto75]

Reducing population isn't hard.

Hell, one could contribute today by removing themselves.

[wierd]

That exact thing is happening now in most 1st world countries, which is seen as a plateauing of the population growth curve.  As 2nd world countries approach 1st world status, that effect has intensified.

The major issue is that there aren't enough resources on the planet to sustain all the earths population at 1st world levels (if we assume conspicuous and wasteful consumption patterns.) This is where the "mother nature doesn't care" comes into play.  Either we can scale back on our privileges, and also have fewer children at the same time, and willfully allow population to contract until sustainability is possible--- Or, we can burn up all remaining resources while driving SUVs we dont need so we can feel more virile and the planet becomes barren, and then die horribly all at once.

Our choice.

[wierd]

Reducing population isn't hard.

Hell, one could contribute today by removing themselves.

I see this tendered a lot.  Tell me:  If I wanted to leave the US, and its enforced restrictions on contributing to the monster that it is-- how easy is it to do that?

What's that? They wont let you?  If you try to actually euthanize yourself you get locked up?

Fancy fucking that.

Perhaps rhetorical bullshit isn't the answer after all.  If I was *ALLOWED* to go live in a mud hut, I would have done so YEARS ago.

[Reelya]

The major issue is that there aren't enough resources on the planet to sustain all the earths population at 1st world levels (if we assume conspicuous and wasteful consumption patterns.)

Sure, however let's consider what the result in first-world countries is when there's a resource crunch. It's not to have more kids, it's still to have less kids. Look at the recession, it's estimated that the USA lost about 2 million births because of that. It's definitely not a given that falling standards of living will return us to a high fertility situation. In fact, i just found an article pointing out that rich women in the USA tend to produce more kids than poor women.

https://qz.com/1125805/the-reason-the-richest-women-in-the-us-are-the-ones-having-the-most-kids/

More income and education used to lower fertility precisely because it raised the opportunity costs of having a child. Women lost a lot economically if they cut back on work to attend to an expanding family, so they had fewer kids and invested more in those they had.

But as wealthy people’s income rose faster—much faster—than poor people’s, it became that much easier for the wealthier to hire low-wage workers to help them care for their children, according to an analysis of the US trend at the UK’s Centre for Economic Policy Research. US families in the top 25% of the income distribution have spent drastically more on childcare since 1990, while those in the bottom quarter were generally priced out of the childcare market, opting instead to leave children with relatives and neighbors.

So we could say that's more complex than the "more wealth = less kids" formula. More kids = less income from labor from the mother. In America you can now afford a big family if you can afford to have someone to do full-time childcare. Or, in other words, in the past, rising education levels meant women were more likely to be income-earners than less-educated women. That's not really true anymore. Poor women are expected to work now, meaning they aren't sitting at home with a single breadwinner paying the bills. if the poor get poorer, poor women will have to work more not less, meaning "being poorer" doesn't automatically equate to having bigger families.

[wierd]

That... wasn't the argument I was making.

More, the resource use per person increases dramatically (for the same population) as more populations develop to 1st world status of living.  Right now only a tiny sliver of the total planetary population lives at that level, but that sliver of population consumes more resources than are sustainable.

In order for that quality of living to be the norm, world population would have to contract dramatically, not just plateau.

Killing people really isn't a good answer. (and I get sick of the implications that this is what I am suggesting.) Reduction in living standards, to fill in the slack where population growth reduction is insufficient, is necessary.  Both are needed if you look at the whole picture.  Rather than consider that "Wierd wants to kill people, and he can start with himself." as a rhetorical crutch, look at it this way:  "Wierd wants to allow the quality of living to be reduced to levels that wont usher in a complete biosphere collapse, by withholding the very high levels of consumption and care that we are accustomed to (and already DOES practice what he preaches*.)" 

It becomes less satisfying to shoot the messenger under those conditions though.

(*I STILL refuse to go to the doctor about my painful mystery lumps, because of this view.)

[MrRoboto75]

Okay, now make that profitable within like a financial quarter.

Then maybe the 10 or so mega corps that fuck the planet more than any individuals could might just help you do something.

[wierd]

Sorry, but those things are mutually exclusive.

Humanity can survive a lack of profitability.

It wont survive a planetary resource exhaustion scenario.

[MrRoboto75]

Sorry, but those things are mutually exclusive.

Humanity can survive a lack of profitability.

It wont survive a planetary resource exhaustion scenario.

But the very same profit seeking is why we are here.  Either use the system or seize production.

Either you get the movers and shakers to do what you want, or you guillotine them.

Capitalism as-is isn't going to just flop over to your plan, as a system its built towards growth above all else, and is incredibly resistant.  It does not want to reduce quality of life, it never will.

[wierd]

I know. 

But one person going rambo is not going to work; that's just another nutjob going off, as far as the media (and the world industrial complex) is concerned. To make a proper statement, more than one person's voice is needed.

Which is why I am here.

[Rolan7]

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[scourge728]

So basically, societal collapse is inevitable, because the system won't let us fix the system to avoid the collapse

[Naturegirl1999]

So basically, societal collapse is inevitable, because the system won't let us fix the system to avoid the collapse

Yep