Greed is causing World Hunger!! (edit)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Fun fact, if you swallow watermelon seeds they will begin to grow in your intestine and sprout out of your butt. It's true, I swear.
 
The only "frankenfood" thing I don't get is seedless fruits. If they're seedless, how do they produce new generations?
Fun fact, he one you're eating isn't going to be producing the next generation in the first place...[/QUOTE]

So, what does the "parent" strain produce two different types of offspring? Ones with seeds, and ones without?
 
What exactly is the argument for a population growth based model? Is it that we're not going to be around when it gets bad, so who cares, or is it that we're just betting everything that a magical easy no sacrifice solution will show up before we run out of room and resources?
Neither. It's that people don't want any authority telling them they can or can't have kids.

What's the argument for growth control? So far we've had, and surpassed, numerous predictions over the last century or two that we'd run out of food/room/resources/energy/etc.

The one thing we do know is that humans adapt to their environment, or make their environment adapt to them.

We now have food crops and methods of agriculture that are producing at a significantly higher output than previous crops and methods which we couldn't have imagined in the 70's when zero population was popular.

Yes, we should make sure we're not painting ourselves into a corner, but even the worst predictions merely say that some people in some parts of the world will have a more difficult time affording food and water in the near future, because as the demand goes up, so do the costs.

As costs go up, though, people will self-restrict their family size. No one wants to choose which child should get less food and die because they can't afford to feed all their children, so they will choose not the have another child in the first place.

This fits in very well with empowering women in societies where women are marginalized.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
A global ideological (possibly) thermonuclear war would probably also solve a lot of our population problems...
 
A global ideological (possibly) thermonuclear war would probably also solve a lot of our population problems...
You only say that because there's nothing worth nuking in Texas.[/QUOTE]

Except a lot of space:
According to the U.N. Population Database, the world's population in 2010 will be 6,908,688,000. The landmass of Texas is 268,820 sq mi (7,494,271,488,000 sq ft).

So, divide 7,494,271,488,000 sq ft by 6,908,688,000 people, and you get 1084.76 sq ft/person. That's approximately a 33' x 33' plot of land for every person on the planet, enough space for a town house.

Given an average four person family, every family would have a 66' x 66' plot of land, which would comfortably provide a single family home and yard -- and all of them fit on a landmass the size of Texas. Admittedly, it'd basically be one massive subdivision, but Texas is a tiny portion of the inhabitable Earth.

Such an arrangement would leave the entire rest of the world vacant. There's plenty of space for humanity.
By the by: Those numbers up there? From the UN Population Database (http://esa.un.org/unpp/)
 
A global ideological (possibly) thermonuclear war would probably also solve a lot of our population problems...
You only say that because there's nothing worth nuking in Texas.[/quote]

Except a lot of space:
According to the U.N. Population Database, the world's population in 2010 will be 6,908,688,000. The landmass of Texas is 268,820 sq mi (7,494,271,488,000 sq ft).

So, divide 7,494,271,488,000 sq ft by 6,908,688,000 people, and you get 1084.76 sq ft/person. That's approximately a 33' x 33' plot of land for every person on the planet, enough space for a town house.

Given an average four person family, every family would have a 66' x 66' plot of land, which would comfortably provide a single family home and yard -- and all of them fit on a landmass the size of Texas. Admittedly, it'd basically be one massive subdivision, but Texas is a tiny portion of the inhabitable Earth.

Such an arrangement would leave the entire rest of the world vacant. There's plenty of space for humanity.
By the by: Those numbers up there? From the UN Population Database (http://esa.un.org/unpp/)[/quote]
Cool, that leaves food and water needs of the people outside of that area. I say we send the muties after it. They're already freaks, after all.
 
Of course it's only making a point about space Krisken. I'm not providing an answer to the problem of food for the world, just showing how we often tend to think of the planet practically EXPLODING with people when it's really not.;)
 
Of course it's only making a point about space Krisken. I'm not providing an answer to the problem of food for the world, just showing how we often tend to think of the planet practically EXPLODING with people when it's really not.;)
Ya know, i was just being silly, not trying to have a serious debate (with nuking everything but Texas). You could have played along.
 
Of course it's only making a point about space Krisken. I'm not providing an answer to the problem of food for the world, just showing how we often tend to think of the planet practically EXPLODING with people when it's really not.;)
Ya know, i was just being silly, not trying to have a serious debate (with nuking everything but Texas). You could have played along.[/QUOTE]

I'm not arguing AGAINST nuking it. I've lived there. Yikes.
 
S

Soliloquy

Of course it's only making a point about space Krisken. I'm not providing an answer to the problem of food for the world, just showing how we often tend to think of the planet practically EXPLODING with people when it's really not.;)
Ya know, i was just being silly, not trying to have a serious debate (with nuking everything but Texas). You could have played along.[/QUOTE]

I'm not arguing AGAINST nuking it. I've lived there. Yikes.[/QUOTE]

But... but my uncles live in Texas.

Don't we have anything stronger?
 
D

Dusty668

Humans have been frankenfooding since like the second year we discovered planting things we like near the house is a great way to find the things we like near the house. Then we got all techie, and built a fence for keeping sheep in. We've gone to greenpeace hell ever since.

The hunger issue is not just getting food for people, we can do that, world war I, world war II, Korean War, countries all over the world stepped up farming outputs and techniques and delivered humanitarian aid by the bushel, it shows too, look at the Hawaiian & British love of spam from the time they were not allowed/able to fish due to WWII.

Food is a method of control for power "Don't eat that poison food, only I and (insert deity) can guide you in these uncertain times. There's a reason most fundamental religions have strong kosher/clean traife/unclean food laws and regulations.

The olive tree branch is a sign of peace because it takes like 20 years for the tree to grow enough to have a crop, armies on the move cut down trees for fuel, strip them for fodder/shelter, or kill/conscript the farmer. Got an olive tree? you've had a long peaceful spell.

Man is an animal that moves, give him a supply of something he will expand numbers to use all of that supply, grain, water, mineral wealth it don't matter, we are locusts with committees. You want to see some anger on a subject, google up 'generational welfare state'. People living on a dole for generations and expecting it to last all their lives, because it's always been there. Starving? no, but some of the same roots that cause starvation en masse feed this too.

We can make enough food, we can get the food to everyone, we can't make them eat, we can't keep them feeling safe, and if we try some just eat the food and breed up more starving folks the next year.

Is there a single answer this side of the mythical Starfleet replicator? I dunno. Even that would only help most folks, cause some would say they ain't eating artificial food. Maybe have everyone in the world line up and take a good solid cluebat whack upside the haid. Think I'll need one on both sides.
 
C

Chazwozel

The only "frankenfood" thing I don't get is seedless fruits. If they're seedless, how do they produce new generations?

Seedless fruits still have seeds, just not many. I think a lot of them are also crossbreeds i.e. fruit that has been bred to be sterile (seedless) from seeded fruits, kinda like a how you get a mule in terms of animals. I think other plants like pumpkins and watermelons naturally use runner shoots that spread a single plant over a large area with lots of offspring fruit.

I dunno...I'm just making conclusions up off the top of my head. I'm no plant geneticist.
 
The only \"frankenfood\" thing I don't get is seedless fruits. If they're seedless, how do they produce new generations?
Fun fact, he one you're eating isn't going to be producing the next generation in the first place...[/quote]

So, what does the "parent" strain produce two different types of offspring? Ones with seeds, and ones without?[/quote]

I'm assuming that they just keep the original strain around for when they run out.

And here we go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedless_fruit#Biology

You're eating clones mostly.

Also, seedless bananas?! What? How does a real banana looks like then?!
 
The only \"frankenfood\" thing I don't get is seedless fruits. If they're seedless, how do they produce new generations?
Fun fact, he one you're eating isn't going to be producing the next generation in the first place...[/quote]

So, what does the "parent" strain produce two different types of offspring? Ones with seeds, and ones without?[/quote]

I'm assuming that they just keep the original strain around for when they run out.

And here we go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedless_fruit#Biology

You're eating clones mostly.

Also, seedless bananas?! What? How does a real banana looks like then?![/QUOTE]

 
Empowering women isn't, specifically, what causes less children to be born. There's a positive, nut weak, correlation.
Lower infant death rates and higher average income lowers birth rate. We tend to have lots of children because half of them DIE, and the other half is needed to sustain us later on. There's a much stronger positive correlation between infant and youth survival and lower birth rates.
 
R

RealBigNuke

just showing how we often tend to think of the planet practically EXPLODING with people when it's really not.;)
Well, to be fair, if you added roads, parking, stores, government and commercial structures, factories, dumps, and, of course, enough farms for the 10 billion chickens and however many other animals we have alive at one time and the crops to feed them and crops to feed us...

It might be a lot more accurate to say that if you covered every flat surface on North America with waste and the moving parts of civilization, you could then give every family in the world a small house in Texas, probably.

Wildly tangential, I know, but ah well.
 
C

Chazwozel

What exactly is the argument for a population growth based model? Is it that we're not going to be around when it gets bad, so who cares, or is it that we're just betting everything that a magical easy no sacrifice solution will show up before we run out of room and resources?
Neither. It's that people don't want any authority telling them they can or can't have kids.

What's the argument for growth control? So far we've had, and surpassed, numerous predictions over the last century or two that we'd run out of food/room/resources/energy/etc.

The one thing we do know is that humans adapt to their environment, or make their environment adapt to them.

We now have food crops and methods of agriculture that are producing at a significantly higher output than previous crops and methods which we couldn't have imagined in the 70's when zero population was popular.

Yes, we should make sure we're not painting ourselves into a corner, but even the worst predictions merely say that some people in some parts of the world will have a more difficult time affording food and water in the near future, because as the demand goes up, so do the costs.

As costs go up, though, people will self-restrict their family size. No one wants to choose which child should get less food and die because they can't afford to feed all their children, so they will choose not the have another child in the first place.

This fits in very well with empowering women in societies where women are marginalized.[/QUOTE]

Dude, no.

This fits in very well with empowering women in societies where women are marginalized.
Problem is this isn't the case in many regions of the world which is why Africa still has a horrible AIDS problem as well as population.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top