Saving the Internet from the NSA

[Blind groper]

Seth should have written TANSTAAFL, which is short for "there aint no such thing as a free lunch." That was a favourite saying of the scifi writer Larry Niven. It is a way of saying you need to work for a living rather than simply holding your hand out. Like all slogans, it has some truth and some falsehood associated, which is why argument by slogan is fallaceous.

Where it is false is the idea that those who are poor should not expect help. In my country, and I know in Australia, and to a lesser extent the USA, the poor get government assistance in the form of social welfare.

Which is why I point out that western nations have no truly poor people, compared to the poor I saw in the Philippines. In the Philippines a poor person can genuinely die of hunger. In the west, a poor person is likely to have nutrition based illness, like Type II diabetes, but is also likely to be obese, rather than starving.

Sadly, rEvo has interpreted this truthful statement of mine as prejudice. It is not. It is simply what all rational people are supposed to do, recognise the objective reality as it is, not as we want it to be.

[Seth]

Seth should have written TANSTAAFL, which is short for "there aint no such thing as a free lunch." That was a favourite saying of the scifi writer Larry Niven. It is a way of saying you need to work for a living rather than simply holding your hand out. Like all slogans, it has some truth and some falsehood associated, which is why argument by slogan is fallaceous.

It's not fallacious in today's economic and technological environment. One day it may no longer be true.

Where it is false is the idea that those who are poor should not expect help. In my country, and I know in Australia, and to a lesser extent the USA, the poor get government assistance in the form of social welfare.

I've never said the poor shouldn't GET help, but no, they should not "expect" help because that fosters a dependency mentality.

Which is why I point out that western nations have no truly poor people, compared to the poor I saw in the Philippines. In the Philippines a poor person can genuinely die of hunger. In the west, a poor person is likely to have nutrition based illness, like Type II diabetes, but is also likely to be obese, rather than starving.

Yup. And yet they want more and more largess from the public coffers nonetheless.

Sadly, rEvo has interpreted this truthful statement of mine as prejudice. It is not. It is simply what all rational people are supposed to do, recognise the objective reality as it is, not as we want it to be.

Quite right. "Poverty" is indeed relative. In the Soviet Union of old nobody was "poor" because everybody was the same, as dictated by the political elite.

[piscator]

Seth should have written TANSTAAFL, which is short for "there aint no such thing as a free lunch." That was a favourite saying of the scifi writer Larry Niven. It is a way of saying you need to work for a living rather than simply holding your hand out. Like all slogans, it has some truth and some falsehood associated, which is why argument by slogan is fallaceous.

Where it is false is the idea that those who are poor should not expect help. In my country, and I know in Australia, and to a lesser extent the USA, the poor get government assistance in the form of social welfare.

Which is why I point out that western nations have no truly poor people, compared to the poor I saw in the Philippines. In the Philippines a poor person can genuinely die of hunger. In the west, a poor person is likely to have nutrition based illness, like Type II diabetes, but is also likely to be obese, rather than starving.

Sadly, rEvo has interpreted this truthful statement of mine as prejudice. It is not. It is simply what all rational people are supposed to do, recognise the objective reality as it is, not as we want it to be.

rEvolutionist has a point though, watching the carrying capacity of the planet diminish and expecting a vague technological solution is an entirely faith-based position.

[Blind groper]

To piscator

Why do you think the carrying capacity is falling?

That is just another version of political correctness, imposed on us by the irrational faction of environmentalists.

As I have pointed out many times, the total resource here on Earth is enormous. Some is renewable, like forests, and United Nations figures show that more hectares of forest are being replanted than are being harvested. Ocean fisheries are suffering through depletion of large fish. But, not at all strangely, the total fish biomass is increasing, as smaller fish thrive in the absense of their predators.

I get amused by news stories such as "we must all eat insects in the future to prevent starvation." Again, as I have pointed out, the most efficient food production method is hydroponics (and you may be surprised to know it is the most water efficient also). A good hydroponic operation can feed the average adult on 100 square metres. Projecting that figure over the wider world means the the Earth could support a sizeable multiple of the maximum human population that will arise any time in the next century.

The most limited resource is oil. However, we already know that it is possible, in theory, to supply all the oil humanity will ever need by growing oil producing algae. Exxon is investing $US 50 million per year in this algae to oil research.

Minerals I have already discussed.

Only the idiot doomsday prophets claim disaster through resource depletion.

[piscator]

To piscator

Why do you think the carrying capacity is falling?

Oceans are souring, coral reefs are dying, fish stocks are failing.

[JimC]

I accept that there are possible technological fixes for our environmental problems, at least enough to forestall total doomsday scenarios.

The catch is whether the political will is going to be there, to actually achieve a healthy and sustainable future. In a way, this is the real divide between optimists and pessimists on this issue. Environmental optimists will assume that the political will is there, and also that the free market will generate solutions via innovation; resource shortages providing strong motivation for successful solutions. Environmental pessimists will say that, given the existing level of damage, our species will not be able to react in time, or have the focus needed to apply solutions, in a world of increasing population pressure, violent conflict and no real chance of agreement between nations with their own self-interest.

Personally, I'm simply not sure; the future is too murky for any confident prediction...

[pErvinalia]

To rEvo

People like you annoy the shit out of me. You have no answers, so you revert to insults. How about a little intelligence for once?

You display it first, and then I will give you the respect you want. Your answers to my points have totally missed the mark and your only argument is basically "I have faith it will all work out ok in the end".

[pErvinalia]

Basically, I'm sick to death of having to explain these basic points to people. It's one thing to have to do it over and over on facebook where you are dealing with the irrational indoctrinated public, but on a rationalist forum I shouldn't have to encounter idiots like that. It shits me.

[Seth]

rEvolutionist has a point though, watching the carrying capacity of the planet diminish and expecting a vague technological solution is an entirely faith-based position.

If anything the carrying capacity of the planet has expanded remarkably under human management. More food is produced today in the United States alone that was produced by the rest of the planet two thousand years ago.

You see, the carrying capacity of the planet doesn't disappear, it just changes what it will carry from time to time. Sixty-one million years ago it was dinosaurs. Then somebody banked a shot off the oort cloud and dropped an eight-ball in the Yucatan pocket and hit the reset button.

[pErvinalia]

We won't continue to produce all that food if phosphorus supplies get more scarce (I hadn't heard about those recent phosphorus discoveries, so that will be interesting to see how that pans out), rain becomes more variable and extreme (i.e. more floods and droughts), and pollinators of that food continue to die out. You and BG don't seem to understand our connection and reliance on the natural ecosystem. It's simply not possible at this stage (or the foreseeable future) that we can engineer solutions to failing ecosystem services (i.e. clean air, clean water, nutrient cycles, carbon cycles, food webs, buffering against extreme events etc).

[Seth]

To rEvo

People like you annoy the shit out of me. You have no answers, so you revert to insults. How about a little intelligence for once?

You display it first, and then I will give you the respect you want. Your answers to my points have totally missed the mark and your only argument is basically "I have faith it will all work out ok in the end".

Your opinion of other people's posts does not entitle you to begin hurling insults because they don't come up to your standards. We put up with a lot of shit from you and have done so for a long, long time and over that period it's pretty obvious when you run out of rational rebuttals because you turn to invective and never look back. Just because you think you're the brightest bulb in the room doesn't mean you are. Trust me, you aren't.

So if you get tired having people "miss the mark" all the time you might want to ponder on whether or not it's your mark and/or your understanding that's faulty rather than it being that everyone else on the planet is intellectually inferior to you and therefore a valid target for scorn and insult.

If you're bored with the responses here and don't want to participate in reasoned debate why don't you just fuck off and do something else for a while. Go wash some laundry or mow the grass, because you look like a complete ass when you abandon reason for invective because you've run out of altitude, airspeed and ideas all at the same time.

[pErvinalia]

To rEvo

People like you annoy the shit out of me. You have no answers, so you revert to insults. How about a little intelligence for once?

You display it first, and then I will give you the respect you want. Your answers to my points have totally missed the mark and your only argument is basically "I have faith it will all work out ok in the end".

Your opinion of other people's posts does not entitle you to begin hurling insults because they don't come up to your standards. We put up with a lot of shit from you and have done so for a long, long time and over that period it's pretty obvious when you run out of rational rebuttals because you turn to invective and never look back. Just because you think you're the brightest bulb in the room doesn't mean you are. Trust me, you aren't.

You're not getting it. I've got plenty of rational rebuttals. I just get sick of repeatedly having to explain simple points to people. And I don't think I should be "entitled" to hurl insults at people. I'm happy to wear any suspensions. I just do it because I get sick of dealing with certain people.

So if you get tired having people "miss the mark" all the time you might want to ponder on whether or not it's your mark and/or your understanding that's faulty rather than it being that everyone else on the planet is intellectually inferior to you and therefore a valid target for scorn and insult.

It's because it's always the same type of person - old white conservatives. That's the pattern, not me. Most people understand these simple points. Old white conservatives are largely incapable of thinking outside their tight little moralistic boxes. Fuck em. They are ruining this world and they can all die of cancer for all I care.

If you're bored with the responses here and don't want to participate in reasoned debate why don't you just fuck off and do something else for a while. Go wash some laundry or mow the grass, because you look like a complete ass when you abandon reason for invective because you've run out of altitude, airspeed and ideas all at the same time.

I prefer to belittle the likes of you. It's the next most rewarding thing to changing minds and educating people.

[pErvinalia]

You know, he hasn't addressed the problem of "debt" AT ALL. And I've raised that point probably 3 or 4 times. So is he debating honestly? I say not, and therefore deserves little respect. You just like fighting with me, so you're happy to ignore this point. Whatever.

[Seth]

We won't continue to produce all that food if phosphorus supplies get more scarce (I hadn't heard about those recent phosphorus discoveries, so that will be interesting to see how that pans out), rain becomes more variable and extreme (i.e. more floods and droughts), and pollinators of that food continue to die out. You and BG don't seem to understand our connection and reliance on the natural ecosystem. It's simply not possible at this stage (or the foreseeable future) that we can engineer solutions to failing ecosystem services (i.e. clean air, clean water, nutrient cycles, carbon cycles, food webs, buffering against extreme events etc).

Sure we will. We will simply find or create alternatives. We'll adapt...or we'll die.

And the ecosystem isn't "failing" in the first place. The US produces so much food that it ships millions of tons to other nations as free foreign aid precisely because the people who actually produce food know what the fuck they are doing. It's "engineered solutions" that have increased crop yield forty-fold since the 1700s. It's "engineered solutions" that allows crop production on the Great Plains, where precipitation is scarce.

The earth is not nearly as fragile as you make it out to be. It will abide and keep on spinning and doing what it does no matter what we do, and species will adapt to changing conditions just as they have for billions of years.

[pErvinalia]

I deal in science, not faith, Seth. But you are a god botherer, so it's no surprise which one you deal in.