Megachange : the world in 2050

[Blind groper]

To mac

I agree that distribution is a major.
That is why most of the effective efforts are based on local food production. The worst off part of the world is Africa, and agriculture there is generally shockingly inefficient. Many initiatives have shown that production of food per acre can be tripled or even quadrupled with the right investment. With increasing technology, I would expect the degree of increase in food production will be even greater in decades to come.

[Tyrannical]

About racism
I think Tyrannical is unable to distinguish between technological development and mental development. If we looked at the average Scotsman 2,000 years ago, we would see a pretty damn rough and barbaric individual (and that's my ancestor). The only significant difference between an Australian aboriginal and a European is that the European developed greater technology.

There is no evidence to support that belief.

[Rum]

Modern man, given his continuing destructive and pretty dumb behaviour could conceivably, and with more than a low level of probability bring catastrophe to the planet. The original Australian natives managed to sustain a way of life, no matter how apparently simple, for many thousands of years and presumably would have continued to do so if the Europeans hadn't brought so called 'civilization' to them.

Not sure who the clever buggers are when one thinks of it that way.

[Blind groper]

Rum

There is an element of romanticism in your view there.

My view is a bit different. I have no romantic ideas about 'living in harmony with nature'. People simply live the lives their culture and technology dictate. I believe that the Australian aboriginal had a pretty fixed, unchanging technology, and hence way of life. As a result of this, the world around them was changed instead of them changing.

They began by killing off all the animals that were vulnerable to them, bearing in mind their level of technology. Some animals survived due to their speed (like emus and kangaroos), living in trees like possums, flying like parrots, burrowing like wombats etc. The koala survived because, with its diet of eucalyptus leaves, its flesh was utterly horrible to eat! Animals survived and evolved to be able to resist predation by Australian native humans.

In addition, the aborigine changed the world around him due to his habit of 'mosaic burning.' Aborigines lit fires and burned off patches of ground. This wiped out fire vulnerable plant species, and the species that thrived with regular fires became dominant. After 50,000 years of such fires, Australia now has a whole bunch of pyrophytes - plants that use fire to assist their reproduction and their competitive success.

The aborigines had a very stable way of life, and so nature had to change.

[Rum]

I don't think I have a romantic take on their way of life at all. Life was probably pretty short and prone to disease, parasites and god knows what else. I was simply making the point that it was stable and sustainable. I don't think we ever lived in some sort of pastoral idyll.

[Blind groper]

Rum

The only reason it was sustainable is that they already made extinct all those life forms that were vulnerable.

[macdoc]

Modern man, given his continuing destructive and pretty dumb behaviour could conceivably, and with more than a low level of probability bring catastrophe to the planet.

The planet will go on.

The existing biome is already well on it's way to destruction as is our first world industrial civilization.

We are adding carbon at a faster rate than the Deccan traps - and THAT resulted in the Permian Extinction event.....we don't want to go there....

and are

Give it a few million years for a biome reboot.

[Rum]

Rum

The only reason it was sustainable is that they already made extinct all those life forms that were vulnerable.

You seem to be insisting I am saying something I am not.

[Tyrannical]

Modern man, given his continuing destructive and pretty dumb behaviour could conceivably, and with more than a low level of probability bring catastrophe to the planet. The original Australian natives managed to sustain a way of life, no matter how apparently simple, for many thousands of years and presumably would have continued to do so if the Europeans hadn't brought so called 'civilization' to them.

Not sure who the clever buggers are when one thinks of it that way.

No living organism, with the possible exception of man, has the foresight and cognitive ability to view it's actions in a long term sustainable way.
Herbivores would readily destroy their environment by over grazing, what keeps that in check is either predators or the famine that follows over grazing to the point of environmental destruction. As plant life recovers, so do the grazers until a crash occurs again.

[mistermack]

The only significant difference between an Australian aboriginal and a European is that the European developed greater technology.

There is no evidence to support that belief.

Tranny, for someone so ready to quote evolution and genetics, you are ludicrously uninformed.
Draw a graph of human activity of the last six million years of human evolution, and the first 5,990,000 years will be a flat line of hunter gathering lifestyles.
The first record of any kind of civilisation is in the middle east, around Iraq I believe. Then you have the explosion of farming and cities, all in the last ten thousand years.

Your graph is a REAL, GENUINE hockey stick that human evolution could NEVER produce.

If you are claiming that that was due to evolution or genetics, you are just as away with the fairies, as the religious fundies.
Do a bit of reading. You might enjoy it.

[Tyrannical]

The only significant difference between an Australian aboriginal and a European is that the European developed greater technology.

There is no evidence to support that belief.

Tranny, for someone so ready to quote evolution and genetics, you are ludicrously uninformed.
Draw a graph of human activity of the last six million years of human evolution, and the first 5,990,000 years will be a flat line of hunter gathering lifestyles.
The first record of any kind of civilisation is in the middle east, around Iraq I believe. Then you have the explosion of farming and cities, all in the last ten thousand years.

Your graph is a REAL, GENUINE hockey stick that human evolution could NEVER produce.

If you are claiming that that was due to evolution or genetics, you are just as away with the fairies, as the religious fundies.
Do a bit of reading. You might enjoy it.

You keep calling me Tranny and I'll report you

Humans have not been around for six million years.
Different environments create different selective pressures on different attributes, and we are the product of our environment. Mass cooperation and pre-planning were necessary attributes for early human civilization. In a society, certain attributes are favored and through natural selection become more common. Civilization is a long process of weeding out those that have characteristics less useful to civilized society. Certain groups, notably Aborigines and Blacks have not been under this pro-civilization selective pressure to weed out the negatives and distill the more socially acceptable attributes.

Read up on the domesticated fox experiment, they are cute too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

[mistermack]

Humans have not been around for six million years.
Different environments create different selective pressures on different attributes, and we are the product of our environment. Mass cooperation and pre-planning were necessary attributes for early human civilization. In a society, certain attributes are favored and through natural selection become more common. Civilization is a long process of weeding out those that have characteristics less useful to civilized society. Certain groups, notably Aborigines and Blacks have not been under this pro-civilization selective pressure to weed out the negatives and distill the more socially acceptable attributes.

Read up on the domesticated fox experiment, they are cute too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

What a load of utter garbage.

Human ANCESTORS have been around for much more than six million years.
It's still human history, whatever name you give them.

Just like the religious fundies, you ignore all established science and history that has been sweated over by hard working researchers, and come out with your own load of drivel.

Or maybe, I'm wrong, maybe you can quote references of legitimate peer reviewed studies, that support that twaddle.

And the silver foxes were intensively bred by people with a purpose in mind.
When and where did that happen to humans?

[Blind groper]

If you check the work of Prof. Stephen Pinker ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk ), you will see that the reduction in violence that has happened is very recent. Too recent for it to be the result of any genetic selection. The murder rate in England less than 1000 years ago was 100 killings per 100,000 population per year. Today, it is 1. This process has happened so rapidly it must be cultural.

So I have to dispute Tyrannical's idea that we have been bred for civilised behaviour. It comes from learning, meaning all races and peoples can enjoy the same result.

[Atheist-Lite]

If you check the work of Prof. Stephen Pinker ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk ), you will see that the reduction in violence that has happened is very recent. Too recent for it to be the result of any genetic selection. The murder rate in England less than 1000 years ago was 100 killings per 100,000 population per year. Today, it is 1. This process has happened so rapidly it must be cultural.

So I have to dispute Tyrannical's idea that we have been bred for civilised behaviour. It comes from learning, meaning all races and peoples can enjoy the same result.

There isn't a high murder rate today but that could change tommorow. I wouldn't trust in this reduction in violence theory. History doesn't happen like a graph in way shape or form. Peace, love and understanding is just a fashion trend and nothing to do with learning - those who caused godwins rule were quite intellectual and worldly wise at the top end, just ten years before the grue it was party on in the weimer, many would have been tolerant and not out of place even here before the 'conomy crashed down dead.

[Tyrannical]

What a load of utter garbage.

Human ANCESTORS have been around for much more than six million years.
It's still human history, whatever name you give them.

(not a human)

Just like the religious fundies, you ignore all established science and history that has been sweated over by hard working researchers, and come out with your own load of drivel. Or maybe, I'm wrong, maybe you can quote references of legitimate peer reviewed studies, that support that twaddle.

It is the PC egalitarian crowd that have ignored established science and history.

And the silver foxes were intensively bred by people with a purpose in mind.
When and where did that happen to humans?

They were bred amazingly quickly to enforce the tameability trait over a few dozen generations. I see a similar thing with certain human groups when they first started to become civilized. Behavioral traits were favored that encouraged societal cooperation, and dissenters were exiled or killed.