Would you kill everyone to save the future?

[blueback]

Okay, lets say that Peak Oil is right around the corner and the world isn't ready for it. When the news hits the financial markets are going to crash and the superpowers are going to mobilize their militaries to physically control what oil remains. The ensuing resource war will drain the energy, time, and physical resources of the world to the point where rebuilding is impossible. Without fossile fuels 2/3 of the world's population will starve and many of the people left over will die in the wars, plagues and looting that follow.

So, lets assume that is going to happen.

What if instead of that happening, you invented a virus that kills 2/3 of the human population it infects. You spread it through the international airline network and the entire world catches it. 2/3 of the world population dies within a month which is too fast for anyone to get the chance to start a war. The remaining population of the planet now has the opportunity to switch from fossile fuels to some other energy source without the confusion and destruction of most of the people in the world starving to death and fighting over the resources that remain.

Which would you chose? The one where everyone dies over time and take most of the infrastructure and resources of the world with them, or the one where everyone dies quickly and leaves the world relatively intact, but you are the one directly responsible for all those deaths.

[PRBori]

If you want to burn in HELL then you can kill innocent people for your own convictions, but if you believe that there are very powerful reasons behind everything that's happening and believe in destiny and God, then you will be able to understand that there is no need to sacrifice the innocent.

I believe in Destiny and the fact that everything in our lives happen for a reason. Even if at the beginning we can't really understand those reasons there is always a very powerful reason as to why they happen.

So my answer to your question will be.. NO I won't kill 2/3's of the population to satisfy my own pursuits or ideas. It is selfish, it is a premeditated murder, and unaceptable behavior.

I would prefer that people die on their own when God call for them.

[Hdier]

Assuming that it is guaranteed that people would be able to use a different energy source, the future without the virus is unchangeable without the virus, the virus causes a painless death, etc., then I would choose to unleash the virus.

This is because I would consider anything else selfish and cruel, as I would be allowing people to suffer just because I was to weak to do what I needed to for the sake of everyone. Even for the people who were killed, it would be mercy.

Of course, I would have to give myself the virus as soon as the task was complete. Mass murder is mass murder, not matter why it was done (actually I'd never be able to sleep again because I'd wonder 'what if...' the rest of my life [actually, that would happen if I chose the other decision to] and I'd be showing mercy on myself).

Keep in mind that it would be VERY hard to convince me of all the things that you have to (i.e. God telling me his/her/it's self would barely qualify), so I'd probably choose not to kill them simply because I believe that there is always a chance for something different to happen.

[blueback]

lol, yay! Two very different perspectives in two posts. We're batting 1000.

[ehares]

I didn't read any of the posts.

Do you mean "everyone" as in humans?




In that case, yes.




[Edit]
Having read the OP, I have to say this is incredibly lame. How is killing two-thirds of the population "everyone", and how is delaying negative effects "saving the future"?

I thought you were talking about some disastrous collapse of our local space-time, not a weak rehash of "12 Monkeys".

[athenian200]

I would do it, as long as I had a vaccine to protect myself, as well as one or two special people, and I had a good chance of not being found out. I just couldn't bear the idea of our wonderful technology and infrastructure being destroyed by teeming masses of uneducated, needy people, with little chance of ever having it restored. There is too much need to keep it going, and too many people consuming too many resources. I think it's better to have a smaller population living well, than a larger one living in squalor. I would even consider my allowing them to die surrounded by beauty rather than living out the rest of their lives in filth to be a merciful act.

[azelismia]

There is no such thing as god and it's ridiculous to assume there is one.

[thod]

If it was sex specific and the 2/3 were all the women you would be left with 6 guys for every chick. Totally unacceptable. If it were the other way around you would get a personal harem. Bring on the virus, I have always fancied a harem instead of a sports car.

[Kotetsu]

I'd unleash the virus only if I could be convinced everyone was going to die if I didn't. Sure, I would almost certainly die as a consequence, but keeping us going is more important; that is what I see as the only real purpose of life.

[ShaiGar]

Yes. Beforehand though I'd hide myself away, or give myself immunity.

[Serket]

Would there be enough educated people left to implement the new system?

[Motor Jax]

If it was sex specific and the 2/3 were all the women you would be left with 6 guys for every chick. Totally unacceptable. If it were the other way around you would get a personal harem. Bring on the virus, I have always fancied a harem instead of a sports car.

i thought this one was quite hilarious in that to think that Irony has a strange sense of humor, and one would probably end up with chicks who only gid chicks, or just over-weight and butch

oh, i had a good laugh thinking about that one

:laugh:

If you want to burn in HELL then you can kill innocent people for your own convictions, but if you believe that there are very powerful reasons behind everything that's happening and believe in destiny and God, then you will be able to understand that there is no need to sacrifice the innocent.

I believe in Destiny and the fact that everything in our lives happen for a reason. Even if at the beginning we can't really understand those reasons there is always a very powerful reason as to why they happen.

So my answer to your question will be.. NO I won't kill 2/3's of the population to satisfy my own pursuits or ideas. It is selfish, it is a premeditated murder, and unaceptable behavior.

I would prefer that people die on their own when God call for them.

i agree

this life is only temporal anyways

who cares how you're going to die? its all part of life anyways

and who wants to live forever and getting sick, diseases, cancers, headaches, needing to sleep, waking up tired anways?

[Antares]

I choose the option with the highest pay-offs. If the highest payoff is killing a large amount of people, but I'd save more, yes, I will. I consider the Earth and nature far above one species of organism; we're just one among the millions of species. I would consider the Earth as a whole, and not focus just on humans.

If you want to burn in HELL then you can kill innocent people for your own convictions, but if you believe that there are very powerful reasons behind everything that's happening and believe in destiny and God, then you will be able to understand that there is no need to sacrifice the innocent.

I believe in Destiny and the fact that everything in our lives happen for a reason. Even if at the beginning we can't really understand those reasons there is always a very powerful reason as to why they happen.

So my answer to your question will be.. NO I won't kill 2/3's of the population to satisfy my own pursuits or ideas. It is selfish, it is a premeditated murder, and unaceptable behavior.

I would prefer that people die on their own when God call for them.

So... if I believe in God, I'd see it from your point of view?

[sriv]

The ends justify the means. Machiavellian concept. I would unleash the virus and knowing that everything would go according to your description and given that I would be immune.

[OneBadMother]

Instead of outright killing 2/3rds of the population using such an imprecise method, I would enforce population control and resource conservation with an iron fist. Killing so many people very suddenly would cause more trouble than it was worth.

[PRBori]

I choose the option with the highest pay-offs. If the highest payoff is killing a large amount of people, but I'd save more, yes, I will. I consider the Earth and nature far above one species of organism; we're just one among the millions of species. I would consider the Earth as a whole, and not focus just on humans.



So... if I believe in God, I'd see it from your point of view?

NO, my point of view is mine only. Everyone is entitled to their own view.. I know people tend to always mis-interpret my postings for some reason... but all in all I'm just giving my personal views and I don't expect anyone else to share them... is just me...
:)

[OneBadMother]

How about killing non-innocent people, PRBori? :P Let's say you could kill awful people selectively. I'm sure that you can find 2/3rds of the world that fits the criteria of awful or otherwise sorts that the world would be better off without. Would you do it?

[Grizzly]

Whichever option has the highest body count.

Not going to lie here, but I think we need to cull the herd a bit

[Hdier]

The only problem here (assuming I agree with your) is that this is random and chaotic elimination. What would need to be done is precise and targeted elimination, to ensure that the ones that are the 'best' survive ('best', obviously, is defined by whoever is doing the killing).

[Jakalwarrior]

Why not just spread a virus that immunizes people to their own sex protiens. No one dies. Babies are still possible but require medical intervention. Pay 500 bucks or not have a kid. Population problem fixed ;) idiots breeding fixed ;)
Gonna have to happen any way when they figure out how to let us live forever since most everyone is a selfish piece of trash and would collectively all bend the rules.

[DrEast]

Ever read Watchmen?

"Never surrender. Even in the face of Armageddon." - Rorschach

[Fej]

I wouldn't kill everyone to save the future...I would just do it for the fun of it!

[SmileyMan]

I wouldn't want to release a virus that infect every human being. First I'd discover a difference in the genes of the africans and asians, then I'd exploit that difference to make sure other races couldn't be infected. Controlled cut-down of people who can't live without aid from the outside and of people who have bred too much.

[Jane]

I would kill everyone (not 2/3s), even myself. I would shoot myself after that--- I would not be the last one to die.

[Lout]

Switching to alternate sources of energy after killing two-thirds of the population doesn't make sense. Isn't it very likely that a lot of the manpower and mental prowess required to do the big switch would simply be wiped out by this epidemic?

Personally, I wouldn't have qualms about killing off that many people (Yes, yes, I'm a heartless bastard etc. etc.). There are possibly only 3 people other than myself whom I would like to save and, since I shall be engineering the virus, I would ensure their safety.

Has anyone considered what the impact of such a sudden influx of biomass (the dead, decomposing bodies) will be?

[SmileyMan]

Actually, asians are the superior race.

In what way?

[Uberfuhrer]

I'd kill everyone to save myself...because I am the future.

[sriv]

I'd kill everyone to save myself...because I am the future.

You wont have a very long future if you dont have anyone to reproduce with.

[Antares]

The discussion on Racial Superiority is now found here (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

[ethsar46]

I would do it without a second thought.

[the human iPod]

I would choose to do so, but also take myself out with the virus as well. Why should my life be so much more valuable than the rest of the 2/3? This is a selfish and ignorant concept. Also, life is pretty dull anyways. But if it would allow the world to change dependence to renewable fuels and such, then I would most definately release the virus.

[ethsar46]

Does it really have to be a virus? i mean what if it accidently wipes out everyone/thing?

[Hdier]

Has anyone considered what the impact of such a sudden influx of biomass (the dead, decomposing bodies) will be?

Good point...the stench would be horrible!





Hdier added to this post, 1 minutes and 4 seconds later...

I would choose to do so, but also take myself out with the virus as well. Why should my life be so much more valuable than the rest of the 2/3? This is a selfish and ignorant concept. Also, life is pretty dull anyways. But if it would allow the world to change dependence to renewable fuels and such, then I would most definately release the virus.

Well, to truly be fair you would need to release the virus without taking any immunizations, etc. and leave it to luck weather or not you live.

[blueback]

True, that would be fair. But if you're the sort of person who would take it upon theirself to kill 2/3 of the people in the world so that the other 1/3 would have a much improved future. . . .then you probably have a high enough opinion of yourself to not leave your existence up to chance.

[Hdier]

Ah, but his/her point was that he/she didn't have as high of an opinion of him/herself, and would kill his/herself because he/she didn't believe that he/she was more valuable than the rest of the world (you know, I didn't really realize how much I used gender-specific pronouns before this forum...).

[blueback]

Right. I meant that, inspite of that idea, anyone arrogant enough to make a decision regarding the fate of 2/3 of the people in the world would probably value themselves very highly.

[onlyparallel]

The problem with the virus is that humanity will repeat itself. Some of the people left over will no doubt believe in war, and will continue using fossil fuels. Eventually the population would recover and wars will begin again. So I would be every torn on wether on not using the virus is sucj a good idea. I mean, if it's going to happen anyway, why not just see if the people who somehow survive the first option would realize where humanity went wrong and right themselves?

[silverbirch]

I choose the option with the highest pay-offs. If the highest payoff is killing a large amount of people, but I'd save more, yes, I will. I consider the Earth and nature far above one species of organism; we're just one among the millions of species. I would consider the Earth as a whole, and not focus just on humans.

Definately - the Earth is the key here to me, not the people. Did anyone see a film years and years ago, about a similar predicament. It's never left me - I think I was about 11 at the time. The world had an unmanagable population level and asked for volunteers to die, in order to conserve resources. There was a huge queue of people happy to oblige (I'd be in the queue too in that scenario - anything to help Mother Earth!) and they were walked into a room with a big chair which they reclined into - surround by beautiful film clips of their favourite things in life, with their favourite music - and went out in absolute bliss.

If faced with it - I would like that to be the way to go - not to kill people without their consent.

[onlyparallel]

The only problem with that scenario, silverbirch, is that everyone who cared about the earth would be dead and no one would be left to defend it.

[blueback]

Ha ha, the age old dillema of wanting A but rewarding B.

If you kill every volunteer in the world you will have a very selfish world left over. Instead, what you should do is ask all the volunteers to step into specially prepared buildings, which are actually protective bunkers, and then gas all the non-volunteers to death. REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY!!!

[silverbirch]

Ha ha - that's wonderful. I hadn't thought about that. Though........ I wonder if you did kill the people volunteering to die, then surely you would naturally be left with those with a fight in them to survive (yes, you will have some idiots left over). But perhaps that drive would ensure for some that they ...

no, I'm not even convincing myself.

[fonmaneal]

I wouldn't release the virus. I would get some cold beer and watch the fire works.
Of those left in the virus world, what are odds that they wont go nutty and start shooting anyway. Also the odds that those left can maintain the infrastructure, not just used car salesmen and thugs?
Have fun in your world:)

[blueback]

Not having a plan doesn't count as a plan.

[sriv]

Unless the plan is apathy. Then there is a plan of doing nothing. If the plan of apathy is chosen, one has chosen not to plan further.

[darkkodiak]

As much as I would like to spread such a virus and eliminate 2/3 of the world population and I would in a heartbeat, doing so IMO automatically puts you at the position of taking responsibility of leading the new world. Otherwise, the world will just go back to the same story and someone else will have to develop another virus to kill off 2/3 of the world population again. I say do it, but take responsibility to make sure that the new world moves into a different direction and it will be YOU who will have to lead that new world. I know that doing so will be painful and SUCKS but it's gotta be done.

[Retz]

I would do it if it meant saving the world (or at least benefiting it more then not doing it would).

Of course a better method would be to pick who dies and I would be willing to spend time doing that. My list grows pretty fast.

[Ool]

Come on, killing people to save their future is like curing the illness by killing the patient. It defeats the purpose.

Also, how long would it take humanity to grow to today’s population once again? A generation, maybe two? That’s not even a century. And the problem is, an abundance of energy isn’t exactly a catalyst for technological sophistication and the creation of a systainable lifestyle. Just look at the US, whose population density is 4 people/km² vs. the EU’s 12 people/km². So culling humanity by two thirds merely makes Europe as empty as the US is today, giving people a lot more space and resources per person. What are they going to do with those resources, though? Are they going to use them wisely, learn novel ways of stretching them, and eventually find ways of tapping into the huge energy resources in outer space, which would really make a difference?

Well, if the US is any indicator, then it ain’t gonna happen. What’s more, a viral apocalypse is going to leave people deeply shocked and suspicious of technology. They’re much more likely to revert to religious superstition and a luddite attitude. You might create another thousand years of Dark Ages that way, which is a thousand years of opportunity for climate change to weaken us even more or a meteorite falling on our heads…

Actually a steady increase in population and depletion of resources is probably the best stimulus for our eventually mustering up the initiative to look for new horizons and start using the huge amount of solar energy currently passing our world by and wasting away into deep space.

There is, after all, so much energy out there that the fossil fuel abundance we’ve enjoyed during the 20th century will one day look to us like cave-dwelling during an ice age…!

So rather than imagining how to stretch the limited resources of this planet for a few more centuries by killing people, maybe we ought to look into opening up more space for orders of magnitude more people than there are alive today? How about that…?

[blueback]

Right, cuz doing exactly what got us into this mess is sooooo likely to get us out of it. <-sarcasm

You can't solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.

If you'd paid attention, you'd have noticed that the question assumes that the increase in population will lead to resource scarcity which will lead to war which will lead to 2/3 of the population dying AND taking most of the infrastructure with them.

Your theory doesn't take into account the fact that we probably have just enough oil left over to have ourself a really satisfying world war before we sink back into the dark ages. If, instead, we kill off the huge mass of people which is causing the problem we provide more time for technological innovation and societal evolution to find a solution to our problem.

The way I see it, we've only got one shot at building a society around space based solar power. If we use up all the oil and backslide into the middle ages, what power source will we use to rebuild industry? If we hold out long enough to plug directly into the sun we will be able to move on to bigger and better things, but we can't plug into the sun without a highly advanced society to support the technology and provide the capital.

If we get rid of the people, and leave the infrastructure intact, the ones left over will get on with their lives. They will still have all the things they need, but they won't have a bunch of useless mouths to feed.

[Ool]

The way I see it, we've only got one shot at building a society around space based solar power. If we use up all the oil and backslide into the middle ages, what power source will we use to rebuild industry? If we hold out long enough to plug directly into the sun we will be able to move on to bigger and better things, but we can't plug into the sun without a highly advanced society to support the technology and provide the capital.

Solar, actually. You can build and improve a solar-based infrastructure on the ground before you shoot it into space. You can nourish the world’s population even without fossil fuels if meat consumption were reduced and local farming replaced a hugely wasteful global food trade.

Public transportation could go a long way keeping us mobile and the internet infrastructure would remain even during an energy crisis, so we would remain in touch with each other. And there would be enough local pockets of energy left to advance scientific research into better building materials, such as the ones that could make space elevators happen, for instance. If anything the relative ease of fossil fuels, while catalyzing our progress on the one hand, has been holding us back in many other respects.

Why is the US still producing the most wasteful gas-guzzlers, for instance, if not because they were sitting on top of enough oil during the first seventy years of the 20th century and had sufficient control over the global oil market during the last thirty? They had it so good they never realized how anomalous their situation actually was. Other countries, on the other hand, who felt much more of a pinch from fluctuating oil markets, went on to develop remarkably economical vehicles.

Your idea of sacrificing the many for the benefit of the few is actually a much riskier proposal than letting this take its natural course. It can produce desperate people, who feel they have no future, owe to and deserve from others nothing, and hence don’t mind resorting to even the most unsustainable means of short-term survival. And if they ever rise up they can bring entire empires down—and with them elaborate plans for the future that would have required enormous collective investment. But you can’t expect people to subscribe to those ideals and visions if it involved the deliberate eradication of many of their kith and kin…

[azelismia]

Solar, actually. You can build and improve a solar-based infrastructure on the ground before you shoot it into space. You can nourish the world’s population even without fossil fuels if meat consumption were reduced and local farming replaced a hugely wasteful global food trade.



They are doing research on creating meat in petri dishes without actually raising animals for the purpose of consumption.

[Ool]

They are doing research on creating meat in petri dishes without actually raising animals for the purpose of consumption.

Well, there’s that and then there’s soy beans. If we went low-tech and started eating bugs instead of cows that might go a long way towards covering our protein requirements, too…

[ArchonAlarion]

The universe contains an infinite number of variables. Either choice may have totally different effects than you predict.

If I had to choose, I would probably not use the killing option.

[ShaiGar]

Okay guys, lets be honest here and just come out and say it.

Would you kill everyone?
Probably, yes.

[azelismia]

Well, there’s that and then there’s soy beans. If we went low-tech and started eating bugs instead of cows that might go a long way towards covering our protein requirements, too…

bugs carry disease

[blueback]

Solar, actually. You can build and improve a solar-based infrastructure on the ground before you shoot it into space.

That's a pretty ill-formed idea to be your topic sentence.

We haven't even done it yet and everyone knows that building solar collecting satellites on the ground and then launching them into orbit is a horrible idea. It would be much better to build a solar collecting satellite manufacturing plant on the moon and launch them into orbit from there.

However, your use of the word "infrastructure" implies that you mean we should run our society on ground-bases solar power before we build satellites that collect solar power. Good luck doing that when the densest form of energy you can collect is firewood.

You can nourish the world’s population even without fossil fuels if meat consumption were reduced and local farming replaced a hugely wasteful global food trade.

No, we can't.

The human population passed the carrying capacity of the planet sometime between 1980 and 1990 and we've been coasting on momentum since then. Without nitrogen-based fertilizers and gas-based harvesting and transportation we can only produce enough food for maybe half of the world's current population. Organic farming produces a lot fewer calories than industrial farming.

I'm not saying that switching to a more sustainable and efficient form of organization isn't a good idea, just that we will have to get rid of 1 out of every 2 people to do it.

Public transportation could go a long way keeping us mobile and the internet infrastructure would remain even during an energy crisis, so we would remain in touch with each other.

No, we won't.

You seem to forget that civilization is a system. Who do you think you're going to be talking to on the internet when no one is building computers anymore? When are you going to find the time to piece together a compute system from old parts when you have to search for food for dinner and fight off people who are hungrier than you? What are you going to run your computer on when scavengers have torn out the copper wiring from your neighborhood?

I don't think I even need to explain why no one will be maintaining a public transportation system.

And there would be enough local pockets of energy left to advance scientific research into better building materials, such as the ones that could make space elevators happen, for instance.

So. . .you think it makes sense that the "pockets" of civilization left over will put their time and energy into incredibly difficult research and space exploration instead of authoritarianism and weapons development?

It's nice to see that you've thought this through. <-sarcasm

If anything the relative ease of fossil fuels, while catalyzing our progress on the one hand, has been holding us back in many other respects.

True. We have yet to discover an energy source as forgiving of mistakes as oil. The typical car can go 300 miles on a tank of gas. That means you can go 150 miles in the wrong direction and still make it back to the gas station to fill up again. And you can do it for roughly the same cost as food for a week. That allows a level of self-centerdness that is unprecedented in human history.

However, I kind of enjoy civilization. I don't care if it means a lot of people grow fat and lazy, it's better than the dark ages.

Why is the US still producing the most wasteful gas-guzzlers, for instance, if not because they were sitting on top of enough oil during the first seventy years of the 20th century and had sufficient control over the global oil market during the last thirty?

We haven't had control of the oil market since 1971. What we have had is an awful lot of money with which to buy oil. The price had to hit 120 dollars a barrel before Americans began to change their driving behavior.

They had it so good they never realized how anomalous their situation actually was.

True, but to be fair, no one ever "realizes how anomalous their situation actually was." People who do are labeled as "crazies" and ignored.

Other countries, on the other hand, who felt much more of a pinch from fluctuating oil markets, went on to develop remarkably economical vehicles.

Whatever. People in England drive small cars, but they're using up their water so quickly they've recently begun to run out. No one's got it all figured out.

Your idea of sacrificing the many for the benefit of the few is actually a much riskier proposal than letting this take its natural course.

Prove it.

It can produce desperate people, who feel they have no future, owe to and deserve from others nothing, and hence don’t mind resorting to even the most unsustainable means of short-term survival.

That sounds like what I described as the exact situation we could avoid by killing 2/3 of the population with a virus. People never feel, collectively, that they have no future. As soon as a few people start to feel that way someone comes along and takes advantage of them. But that person can't get anything done without his minions, so he encourages them to stick around and get some work done.

And if they ever rise up they can bring entire empires down—and with them elaborate plans for the future that would have required enormous collective investment.

I'm pretty sure that the survivors of the plague won't be in the mood for more death.

But you can’t expect people to subscribe to those ideals and visions if it involved the deliberate eradication of many of their kith and kin…

Well, I didn't say we should tell everyone what we're doing, did I? Sometimes it's appropriate to lie to people because the truth would hurt too much. Besides, if I survive the plague it would probably be hard to walk down the street when everyone knew it was my idea.

[wolf]

Between being really annoyed with humanity and curious about the results... I'd be up for one that killed all but roughly 100M people, with a 1000:1 female:male ratio. That is, provided females do not fight each-other. First, I'd release one that killed males almost exclusively. Next, I'd make one keyed on sexual activity, killing those that are active within the month of infection, meaning the youngest and least aggressive males would be left. If the count of males was too high when the culling of all humans started, I suspect they would start a nuclear war that would wipe out all life on earth.

If the experiment failed, I'd release another that would drop female populations resulting in a 100:1 or 10:1 ratio, mattering on the amount of violence. Either way, there would be more than enough people for a sustainable genetic base and few enough that the slowing of technical progress would not go below the increased lifespan of the remaining oil, allowing for alternative technologies to be developed. Most of the world's suburbs and less-desirable cities would disintegrate in the aftermath, with only the useful ones persisting. The high female:male ratio would ensure reduced reproduction rates for at least a few centuries and a near-absence of wars.

I'd live out the remainder of my life in a remote cabin, alone.

[EsoteriEccentri]

Yes. Beforehand though I'd hide myself away, or give myself immunity.

Ditto. Sadly.

[Ool]

We haven't even done it yet and everyone knows that building solar collecting satellites on the ground and then launching them into orbit is a horrible idea. It would be much better to build a solar collecting satellite manufacturing plant on the moon and launch them into orbit from there.

No, I didn’t mean launch them from Earth by rocket. In order to make solar power satellites profitable they’d either have to become a lot more efficient and/or long-lived, it would have to be possible to repair, maintain, and recycle them in space, or they’d have to be made by in-situ resources.

Since we have no industry in space, let alone places where there are actually raw materials to make anything from, it doesn’t look like a viable option right now. That’s why I think space elevators are such a Holy Grail…

As for the Moon, it’s true that it’s easier to launch from there. (Not so easy to land.) Rockets don’t have to be pencil-shaped, the payload/fuel ratio to get into Earth’s orbit from there with launch and aerobraking is about 1:1 as opposed to 1:10 from Earth’s surface.

The problem with the Moon is that there’s plenty of oxygen but not much else. No nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, etc. Finding and processing raw materials for solar collectors is going to be hard.

However, your use of the word "infrastructure" implies that you mean we should run our society on ground-bases solar power before we build satellites that collect solar power. Good luck doing that when the densest form of energy you can collect is firewood.

Well, firewood isn’t going to fuel cars and trucks. You can heat your home with it in the winter, but if you start producing your electricity by burning your forests that may be the point when you realize there is something very wrong with your energy policy.

The human population passed the carrying capacity of the planet sometime between 1980 and 1990 and we've been coasting on momentum since then.

Well, not everyone. The moderate climate zones have a lot of waste going on, producing huge amounts of calories of grain for just a few calories of meat. If this is no longer affordable you can always go back to eating the vegetables direct.

Without nitrogen-based fertilizers and gas-based harvesting and transportation we can only produce enough food for maybe half of the world's current population. Organic farming produces a lot fewer calories than industrial farming.

Well, looking at many a person’s girth, I’d say it is not as if we’ve been scraping the bottom, calorie-wise, so far…

There is a problem with petrochemical fertilizer not making up for the topsoil erosion any more once we run out of natural gas to produce any. Actually the oceans might be a solution to some of our food supply problems. There isn’t much biomass there, but it is still responsible for most of the world’s photosynthesis. That’s because the water in which the plankton is suspended is such a great catalyst. If we could bring the nutrients of the ocean floor closer to the surface in ocean farms we might actually trigger such a boost in plantlife that we might have to worry about another ice age; forget about global warming! They did experiments just dumping a nutrient trace element like iron into the upper ocean layers and the oceanic plantlife exploded in those places…

I'm not saying that switching to a more sustainable and efficient form of organization isn't a good idea, just that we will have to get rid of 1 out of every 2 people to do it.

Even assuming that were true, isn’t starvation going to take care of that just as efficiently as the horrible plague you’re suggesting?

You seem to forget that civilization is a system. Who do you think you're going to be talking to on the internet when no one is building computers anymore? When are you going to find the time to piece together a compute system from old parts when you have to search for food for dinner and fight off people who are hungrier than you? What are you going to run your computer on when scavengers have torn out the copper wiring from your neighborhood?

That’s assuming the moderate climate zones are going to be as hard hit by a food shortage as the more extreme climates. You won’t have Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome going on everywhere. A fuel shortage would actually make sure that local crises remain local.

I don't think I even need to explain why no one will be maintaining a public transportation system.

So. . .you think it makes sense that the "pockets" of civilization left over will put their time and energy into incredibly difficult research and space exploration instead of authoritarianism and weapons development?

Look, an authoritarian system needs some form of public transportation to stay in power. You can’t have it both ways.

It's nice to see that you've thought this through. <-sarcasm

Yeah, we’re quite the thorough thinkers, aren’t we? We’re not just painting sensationalist doomsday scenarios right out of a movie script.

True. We have yet to discover an energy source as forgiving of mistakes as oil. The typical car can go 300 miles on a tank of gas. That means you can go 150 miles in the wrong direction and still make it back to the gas station to fill up again. And you can do it for roughly the same cost as food for a week. That allows a level of self-centerdness that is unprecedented in human history.

And if we run out it’ll be a quite humbling experience, but not necessarily deadly.

However, I kind of enjoy civilization. I don't care if it means a lot of people grow fat and lazy, it's better than the dark ages.

And unleashing a plague is the way to go about preserving the good times…

I love civilization, too. That’s why I dream dreams of ludicrous resource abundance through space elevators, solar power from space, agriculture in geostationary orbit, where the sun shines 24/7 and no bad weather ever ruins your crops. While people may deem either of us crazy, I think you make them more jittery…

We haven't had control of the oil market since 1971. What we have had is an awful lot of money with which to buy oil. The price had to hit 120 dollars a barrel before Americans began to change their driving behavior.

There is a lot of room to adjust there, though. Just living closer together will free up a lot of resources. Just growing your own food on previously weekly-mowed lawns could go a long way towards surviving quite comfortably.

True, but to be fair, no one ever "realizes how anomalous their situation actually was." People who do are labeled as "crazies" and ignored.

Whatever. People in England drive small cars, but they're using up their water so quickly they've recently begun to run out. No one's got it all figured out.

Britain isn’t the likeliest place to run out of water. Maybe people will for a while if their central water supply infrastructure has some bugs. But I’d say the magic word in England to deal with such a crisis would be: “cisterns.”

That sounds like what I described as the exact situation we could avoid by killing 2/3 of the population with a virus. People never feel, collectively, that they have no future. As soon as a few people start to feel that way someone comes along and takes advantage of them. But that person can't get anything done without his minions, so he encourages them to stick around and get some work done.

I'm pretty sure that the survivors of the plague won't be in the mood for more death.

That may be exactly the snag. People after the fall of the Roman Empire weren’t in the mood for any more death and oppression, either. So they made up this beautiful salvation myth and the next thing that happened was a thousand years of Dark Ages between 400 and 1400, in which technology stagnated all over Europe.

That’s what you’re gambling with…

Well, I didn't say we should tell everyone what we're doing, did I? Sometimes it's appropriate to lie to people because the truth would hurt too much. Besides, if I survive the plague it would probably be hard to walk down the street when everyone knew it was my idea.

And so you decided to post it on a web forum…

[blueback]

All right, one thing at a time. . .


No, I didn’t mean launch them from Earth by rocket. In order to make solar power satellites profitable they’d either have to become a lot more efficient and/or long-lived, it would have to be possible to repair, maintain, and recycle them in space, or they’d have to be made by in-situ resources.

A project as big as space based solar power would not be "profitable" in the capitalist sense. It would be "profitable" in the same way the entire space program was "profitable." At least for the forseeable future it would require a national or international level of capital. It would just be another level of infrastructure; like a sewage line, provided by the government.

Since we have no industry in space, let alone places where there are actually raw materials to make anything from, it doesn’t look like a viable option right now. That’s why I think space elevators are such a Holy Grail…

We can produce the raw materials we need from the moon.

An elevator would be cool, but we already know how to put things on the moon with rockets. It doesn't require any significant breakthroughs like a space elevator does.

As for the Moon, it’s true that it’s easier to launch from there...The problem with the Moon is that there’s plenty of oxygen but not much else. No nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, etc. Finding and processing raw materials for solar collectors is going to be hard.

But do-able. The project is big no matter how you slice it. Since it's possible to do it with the technology we have, we should do that rather than wait for a technological breakthrough that might not come (elevators).

Well, firewood isn’t going to fuel cars and trucks. You can heat your home with it in the winter, but if you start producing your electricity by burning your forests that may be the point when you realize there is something very wrong with your energy policy.

Yeah. . .that was the point.

My theory is that the economies of the world are so interlinked and global that peak oil will initiate a downward spiral. The effects will be more drastic in America than in the Congo, but everyone everywhere will feel them. America is built around the idea that people can drive from one place to another, not just private citizens but also businesses. A steadily increasing cost of oil will cause waves of price increases in everything else which will pull the economy into another great depression. The branch point is whether or not the American government decides to get involved in a resource war over the remaining supplies of oil.

If they do, my theory is that you can kiss civilization goodbye. Americans have forgotten how to grow their own food and make their own soap. Even the ones who are pretty resourceful will find themselves surrounded by starving people who will have no problem killing to survive. It will be the excess population that will pull us from a simple depression into the dark ages. Thus, the idea of killing the excess off before peak oil hits.

Well, not everyone. The moderate climate zones have a lot of waste going on, producing huge amounts of calories of grain for just a few calories of meat. If this is no longer affordable you can always go back to eating the vegetables direct.

People can't eat grass.
Starving people are going to fight each other over the food that is left. They aren't going to all start planting popcorn in their front lawns.

Well, looking at many a person’s girth, I’d say it is not as if we’ve been scraping the bottom, calorie-wise, so far…

Lets try to stay on topic. Americans are the most over-fed people in the world. We can afford to be. Which, incidentally, is exactly why we are going to go into a mass panic when we realize that no one is going to be trucking food into our local Wal-Mart every other day any more.

There is a problem with petrochemical fertilizer not making up for the topsoil erosion any more once we run out of natural gas to produce any.

Yep. It was called the Green Revolution and it was kind of a bad idea. It's exactly the same thing that yeast does in sugar water. Yeast multiplies and uses up all the sugar while at the same time producing alcohol (poison). So it kills itself off simply because it expands as fast as its environment will allow, right up to the point where it dies.

Actually the oceans might be a solution to some of our food supply problems.

Wrong. If we got into a problem by producing enough food for the world's population to get too large we aren't going to solve the problem by producing enough food for the population to grow even larger.

Even assuming that were true, isn’t starvation going to take care of that just as efficiently as the horrible plague you’re suggesting?

You are doing an impressive job of not understanding the point of this thread.

1) Peak Oil send the world economies into a downward spiral.
2) The population of the world, already barely getting enough food, will being to get way too little food.
3) The population will do what the population always does in that situation, fight.
4) Instead, a plague kills off the excess population of the world before they have a chance to start fighting.
5) That allows the 1/3 or so who are left to continue the work of civilization because all the infrastructure is still intact.
6) To them it just looks like a horrible accident, so they'll all move on just like humans have always done after plagues.

That’s assuming the moderate climate zones are going to be as hard hit by a food shortage as the more extreme climates. You won’t have Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome going on everywhere. A fuel shortage would actually make sure that local crises remain local.

Nearly everyone in the world currently eats food produced on industrial farms. If they don't, they are eating the food that was freed up for them to eat because everyone else is eating food produced on industrial farms.

That means that when the industrial farms can't produce as much food as they used to, eveyone in the world will feel it. Sure, the people who are still farming organically will probably be okay. . .until a huge crowd of starving people show up at their farm.

The global crisis will produce local problems, but there will be so many local problems that no location will be unaffected.

Or, feel free to disagree with me. Maybe you can come up with a place that would be just fine if they no longer got shipments of food or fossil fuels.

Look, an authoritarian system needs some form of public transportation to stay in power. You can’t have it both ways.

. . . .I'd never heard that before. Where did you get that idea from? Perhaps you can provide some examples of authoritarian regimes that collapsed because they didn't have public transportation.

Yeah, we’re quite the thorough thinkers, aren’t we? We’re not just painting sensationalist doomsday scenarios right out of a movie script.

You can romanticize it if you want, I'm trying to be practical. Of course, the topic of the thread is a hypothetical scenario and I specifically laid out the particular assumptions we're operating under but feel free to continue to confuse the issue.

And if we run out it’ll be a quite humbling experience, but not necessarily deadly.

Not deadly in the sense that it kills of the human race. But it has the potential to be deadly in the sense that it pulls humanity back into the dark ages but this time we've already used up all the oil so going back through the technological progression from horses to horsepower is going to be much more difficult. It definitely wont' happen in my lifetime, which would piss me off.

And unleashing a plague is the way to go about preserving the good times…

When you have a case of gangreen in your arm, sometimes you have to cut off the arm. Sure, it sucks, but it's better than the rest of you dying.

I love civilization, too. That’s why I dream dreams of ludicrous resource abundance through space elevators, solar power from space, agriculture in geostationary orbit, where the sun shines 24/7 and no bad weather ever ruins your crops. While people may deem either of us crazy, I think you make them more jittery…

Yeah, you're probably right, but that's why we're in this mess.

See, your dream of "resource abundance" is the problem.

The Earth has a limited ability to provide resources and absorbe wastes. Period. We have just begun to run into those limits and it is slowly dawning on us that, for the first time in our species' history, we might have to stop growing. If you provide even more resources you are only going to encourage the human race to grow even bigger, which is the exact opposite of solving the problem.

Britain isn’t the likeliest place to run out of water. Maybe people will for a while if their central water supply infrastructure has some bugs. But I’d say the magic word in England to deal with such a crisis would be: “cisterns.”

Right. Maybe you should have researched that before you dismissed it.

That may be exactly the snag. People after the fall of the Roman Empire weren’t in the mood for any more death and oppression, either. So they made up this beautiful salvation myth and the next thing that happened was a thousand years of Dark Ages between 400 and 1400, in which technology stagnated all over Europe.

That didn't make much sense. "salvation myth?"

The Roman empire was falling apart from the inside as it was invaded on multiple boarders by barbarian hordes. That's a pretty different scenario from the one I'm describing.

And so you decided to post it on a web forum…

Oooh, you got me. What was I thinking. I guess I'm going to have to close my virology lab and find something else to do.<-sarcasm

It's a hypothetical discussion, dude. Have you even read the rest of the thread?

[Ool]

A project as big as space based solar power would not be "profitable" in the capitalist sense. It would be "profitable" in the same way the entire space program was "profitable." At least for the forseeable future it would require a national or international level of capital. It would just be another level of infrastructure; like a sewage line, provided by the government.

Well, eventually with space elevators it would be. In the capitalist sense, that is. The actual elevator would have to be provided by the government, but the building of solar power satellites along a geostationary microgravity environment, as well as the building of rectennas on Earth is such a vast and diverse enterprise of comparatively manageable investment that letting private enterprises go at it would be the natural thing.

Here’s a little schematic of a suspension bridge like elevator ring structure that would be quite stable even if a single tape were severed by space debris:

Space elevator ring… (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

(The dimensions are to scale, although the counterweights would probably be much further out in reality…)

The actual ring structure would have to be centrally designed and governments-approved and sponsored, of course. But the actual solar power stations, the agricultural facilities, and the human habitats within such a gigantic environment—able to house orders of magnitude more life and people than Earth’s flat surface ever could, by the way—could easily be built by private industry and immensely financially profitable.

We can produce the raw materials we need from the moon.

An elevator would be cool, but we already know how to put things on the moon with rockets. It doesn't require any significant breakthroughs like a space elevator does.

Yes, in the absense of that the Moon would be the best shot at establishing a solar power infrastructure from space. That and any near Earth orbit asteroids and comets, which could provide the organic materials required for life support and industry. I used to be a big fan of that idea. With the elevator we wouldn’t need it, but without it we do…

But do-able. The project is big no matter how you slice it. Since it's possible to do it with the technology we have, we should do that rather than wait for a technological breakthrough that might not come (elevators).

The problem I have with people today is that neither option seems to be on the table. Sometimes I’m not even sure that outer space is real to them. I’d blame religion, such as the Abrahamic mythologies with their apocalyptic Rapture fantasies, except that I don’t hear a lot about Solar System resource exploitation from rationalists, either…

My theory is that the economies of the world are so interlinked and global that peak oil will initiate a downward spiral. The effects will be more drastic in America than in the Congo, but everyone everywhere will feel them. America is built around the idea that people can drive from one place to another, not just private citizens but also businesses. A steadily increasing cost of oil will cause waves of price increases in everything else which will pull the economy into another great depression. The branch point is whether or not the American government decides to get involved in a resource war over the remaining supplies of oil.

I think they already decided for that option, tried it, and had it blow up in their faces…

If they do, my theory is that you can kiss civilization goodbye. Americans have forgotten how to grow their own food and make their own soap. Even the ones who are pretty resourceful will find themselves surrounded by starving people who will have no problem killing to survive. It will be the excess population that will pull us from a simple depression into the dark ages. Thus, the idea of killing the excess off before peak oil hits.

Yeah, but the only reason they don’t know how to make soap is because they don’t need to make soap. It’s not as if the knowledge isn’t out there and people aren’t able to re-acquire it once the need arises.

Heck, I don’t know how to make soap. I guess you boil bones or something…

People can't eat grass.

Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it! Arugula is quite yummy…

Starving people are going to fight each other over the food that is left. They aren't going to all start planting popcorn in their front lawns.

Well, in the Soviet Union, whose economy was constantly on the fritz, a lot of the people’s food was actually provided by what they grew in their backyards.

Lets try to stay on topic. Americans are the most over-fed people in the world. We can afford to be. Which, incidentally, is exactly why we are going to go into a mass panic when we realize that no one is going to be trucking food into our local Wal-Mart every other day any more.

Yeah, but even if people got trampled in riots, which they didn’t when the Roaring Twenties led to the Great Depression, how is that worse than a plague…?

Yep. It was called the Green Revolution and it was kind of a bad idea. It's exactly the same thing that yeast does in sugar water. Yeast multiplies and uses up all the sugar while at the same time producing alcohol (poison). So it kills itself off simply because it expands as fast as its environment will allow, right up to the point where it dies.

But unlike yeast we have technological know-how. If there weren’t alternatives, such as solar power, such as the oceans, most of which are basically an unused desert today with no sunlight reaching the fertile soil, and, of course, that pleathora of power, outer space, then overpopulation would worry me. But with these options open to us the suffering that the coming bottleneck causes might actually give us just the push we need to reach our potential.

And your plague would sabotage that.

Wrong. If we got into a problem by producing enough food for the world's population to get too large we aren't going to solve the problem by producing enough food for the population to grow even larger.

You are doing an impressive job of not understanding the point of this thread.

1) Peak Oil send the world economies into a downward spiral.
2) The population of the world, already barely getting enough food, will being to get way too little food.
3) The population will do what the population always does in that situation, fight.
4) Instead, a plague kills off the excess population of the world before they have a chance to start fighting.
5) That allows the 1/3 or so who are left to continue the work of civilization because all the infrastructure is still intact.
6) To them it just looks like a horrible accident, so they'll all move on just like humans have always done after plagues.

Yeah, but it wasn’t actually a plague that initiated the Renaissance in Europe. In was the horrific man-made humanitarian crisis of the Thirty Years’ War. The plagues didn’t exactly end the Dark Ages.

Nearly everyone in the world currently eats food produced on industrial farms. If they don't, they are eating the food that was freed up for them to eat because everyone else is eating food produced on industrial farms.

That means that when the industrial farms can't produce as much food as they used to, eveyone in the world will feel it. Sure, the people who are still farming organically will probably be okay. . .until a huge crowd of starving people show up at their farm.

Which can be tragic, but how is it any less tragic than a plague? At least if people feel that it is their fellow human beings who are the problem they might try and find new ways of organizing civilization after the barbarism blows over. If they feel magically given more room by what they perceive as an act of God then there is no moral to the story to them.

The global crisis will produce local problems, but there will be so many local problems that no location will be unaffected.

Or, feel free to disagree with me. Maybe you can come up with a place that would be just fine if they no longer got shipments of food or fossil fuels.

The fact that they will feel the pinch from overpopulation will give them the incentive to look for new solutions, such as expanding into space. If they don’t feel the pinch then nothing will happen. It’s like I said before: Plagues didn’t end the Dark Ages. Civil wars and religious schisms did.

. . . .I'd never heard that before. Where did you get that idea from? Perhaps you can provide some examples of authoritarian regimes that collapsed because they didn't have public transportation.

Authoritarian regimes don’t even come into existence without good transportation. The Romans had their roads and the Mediterranean Sea. But the roads weren’t so great. When the timber along the Mediterranean coasts had vanished then that was the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire.

You can romanticize it if you want, I'm trying to be practical. Of course, the topic of the thread is a hypothetical scenario and I specifically laid out the particular assumptions we're operating under but feel free to continue to confuse the issue.

I’m being practical. And I’m questioning your assumptions—particular your assumption that a crisis brought on by a plague would do humanity more good than a crisis brought on by continuing their present course.

Not deadly in the sense that it kills of the human race. But it has the potential to be deadly in the sense that it pulls humanity back into the dark ages but this time we've already used up all the oil so going back through the technological progression from horses to horsepower is going to be much more difficult. It definitely wont' happen in my lifetime, which would piss me off.

See? Let’s go for space elevators instead…!

When you have a case of gangreen in your arm, sometimes you have to cut off the arm. Sure, it sucks, but it's better than the rest of you dying.

But what about my right to bear arms? Hah, I kill me!

See, your dream of "resource abundance" is the problem.

The Earth has a limited ability to provide resources and absorbe wastes. Period.

Actually those limits are far greater than you might think—if you stop thinking two-dimensional.

We’ve been living on the outer crust of this giant magma ball since the dawn of time, like mold on a wall. Look at the gigantic size a microgravity environment in geostationary orbit would provide us with, compared to the surface of the Earth. The Earth’s circumference is 40,000km. GEO’s is 265,000km. A few thousand rotating habitats up there could easily provide as much surface as all of Earth’s land mass, and there’s room for hundreds of thousands up there.

And as for being able to absorb wastes, that is mostly an energy issue. You can make clean drinking water out of the most toxic sludge with enough energy. You can clean the carbon out of the air. You can bury your wastes so thoroughly that they wouldn’t be any more harmful than what is already down there.

And if we could grow our food in space we could pretty much let nature retake much of the land that we’re currently using down here.

Yes, there are limits to everything. But I think the limits that you see are a few orders too small than what is realistically possible.

We have just begun to run into those limits and it is slowly dawning on us that, for the first time in our species' history, we might have to stop growing.

If this planet were the entire Universe then you would be correct…

If you provide even more resources you are only going to encourage the human race to grow even bigger, which is the exact opposite of solving the problem.

Well, the Malthusian problem will remain even if we open up the Solar System to us. One day we’ll be so many that we’ll feel a resource crisis even within such large an environment. But it is still better than staying down here and becoming all sustainable, because while we’re down here it’s much easier for a very local disaster to wipe us out. Just ask the dinosaurs and the trilobites! Oh, wait, you can’t…

That didn't make much sense. "salvation myth?"

I mean Abrahamic mythology. The fall of the Roman Empire heralded in the rise of the Christian faith in Europe. And look what that meant for the next thousand years…

The Roman empire was falling apart from the inside as it was invaded on multiple boarders by barbarian hordes. That's a pretty different scenario from the one I'm describing.

The Roman Empire fell apart because they ran out of slaves and timber along the Mediterranean, just like we’re running out of oil today. The reasons they had to deal with barbarians at all was because they had to grow ever more into territory for which their technology and geographic location was not equipped. The social discontent and upheavals were a symptom of the Empire’s resource crisis and ultimately what started to rot it from the inside.

Oooh, you got me. What was I thinking. I guess I'm going to have to close my virology lab and find something else to do.<-sarcasm

Maybe rather than writing “sarcasm” you ought to use this smiley: :rolleyes:

It's a hypothetical discussion, dude. Have you even read the rest of the thread?

Well, killing two thirds of the population is even hypothetically a bad idea unless there is a guarantee that the rest will somehow take it as an incentive to grow into space. And I don’t see how that could happen with a plague. I see how it could happen with a Malthusian catastrophe, though…





Ool added to this post, 5 minutes and 11 seconds later...

Heck, I don’t know how to make soap. I guess you boil bones or something…

No, wait, that’s glue…