Is the world in a death spiral?

[apple0154]

determining the minimum and maximum amounts of food ingredients, or of how much electricity and water, that a family is allowed to use or consume a month is not ensuring domestic peace and tranquility. I'm fairly certain that your vision of the future world is not one of utopia, but one of tyranny.

No, it is one of equality. Everyone is entitled to life's necessities, regardless.

 

[apple0154]

Maybe Dixie thinks the fields are tended by slaves, just like in the "good ol' days" his moniker glorifies.

His view of the world is through the veil of a dollar bill.

 

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

Now doesn't that sound better than volcanoes and earthquakes?

Sounds more like you need to back away from the crack pipe.

Not to toot my own horn, but I was watching a documentary the other day, and some scientists believe we are actually overdue for a major cataclysm. We've had them before, they estimate the Earth has been 'destroyed' at least 4 times, perhaps more. She just keeps bouncing back. In any event, I believe this is what will ultimately change us. We're not going to change on our own, or at least, we are not likely to. Now if 2/3 of the population were destroyed and every electronic device on the planet fried in an instant, things would change dramatically, and life would never be the same.

 

[SmarterthanYou]

No, it is one of equality. Everyone is entitled to life's necessities, regardless.

wrong.

 

[USFREEDOM911]

Sounds more like you need to back away from the crack pipe.

Not to toot my own horn, but I was watching a documentary the other day, and some scientists believe we are actually overdue for a major cataclysm. We've had them before, they estimate the Earth has been 'destroyed' at least 4 times, perhaps more. She just keeps bouncing back. In any event, I believe this is what will ultimately change us. We're not going to change on our own, or at least, we are not likely to. Now if 2/3 of the population were destroyed and every electronic device on the planet fried in an instant, things would change dramatically, and life would never be the same.

I believe enough in the human race that I think we would rebound and rebuild. Maybe not to the extent of where we are now; but electical devices can be rebuilt or manufactured.
We have so much of our basic knowledge written down and in so many places that some of it would have to survive.

How much we would recover and what direction we would take, is open only to speculation.

 

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

I believe enough in the human race that I think we would rebound and rebuild. Maybe not to the extent of where we are now; but electical devices can be rebuilt or manufactured.
We have so much of our basic knowledge written down and in so many places that some of it would have to survive.

How much we would recover and what direction we would take, is open only to speculation.

While it's fun to speculate what if's, we have to remember, it's hard to say for certain what would become of mankind in the event of such a thing. Yes, I like to think we could rebound from something like that, but I am not sure we could. Would humanity devolve into a Mad Max kind of anarchy? If so, then we probably aren't going to rebound anytime soon. Yes, electronic devices can be remade, but what if there is no power grid? Seems our first priority might not be getting our cell phones working, but more along the lines of basic survival. Whatever calamity wiped out 2/3rds of humanity, is probably still having some impact on the planet, I would guess. It might take years to see any return of normalcy in regard to climates, tides, etc., depending on the event itself. Massive and multiple volcanic eruptions could block out the sun and cause temperatures to plummet, and all the green stuff to stop growing! What then? How do the remaining people survive a frozen and barren planet for several hundred years, before things return to normal? Could we survive that?

What fascinates me is the stuff we are digging up now, which blows our minds in terms of what we understood of ancient ancestors. They've found where they made things like batteries! Who really knows that our current civilization is the first to reach the intelligence/tech levels it has? The earth is 4+ billion years old, and has been destroyed numerous times by catastrophic events. How do we know for certain that we are the first true human civilization, or that some sentient beings didn't roam the planet ten's of millions of years ago? Of course, we haven't found evidence of this, but what if that's just because we haven't looked in the right place yet? What if all the evidence was destroyed by some cataclysm so great that nothing survived? Science actually keeps these questions open, and we can continue to learn new things about our past. It doesn't 'conclude' that one specific line of events transpired, and here we are!

 

[USFREEDOM911]

While it's fun to speculate what if's, we have to remember, it's hard to say for certain what would become of mankind in the event of such a thing. Yes, I like to think we could rebound from something like that, but I am not sure we could. Would humanity devolve into a Mad Max kind of anarchy? If so, then we probably aren't going to rebound anytime soon. Yes, electronic devices can be remade, but what if there is no power grid? Seems our first priority might not be getting our cell phones working, but more along the lines of basic survival. Whatever calamity wiped out 2/3rds of humanity, is probably still having some impact on the planet, I would guess. It might take years to see any return of normalcy in regard to climates, tides, etc., depending on the event itself. Massive and multiple volcanic eruptions could block out the sun and cause temperatures to plummet, and all the green stuff to stop growing! What then? How do the remaining people survive a frozen and barren planet for several hundred years, before things return to normal? Could we survive that?

What fascinates me is the stuff we are digging up now, which blows our minds in terms of what we understood of ancient ancestors. They've found where they made things like batteries! Who really knows that our current civilization is the first to reach the intelligence/tech levels it has? The earth is 4+ billion years old, and has been destroyed numerous times by catastrophic events. How do we know for certain that we are the first true human civilization, or that some sentient beings didn't roam the planet ten's of millions of years ago? Of course, we haven't found evidence of this, but what if that's just because we haven't looked in the right place yet? What if all the evidence was destroyed by some cataclysm so great that nothing survived? Science actually keeps these questions open, and we can continue to learn new things about our past. It doesn't 'conclude' that one specific line of events transpired, and here we are!

Rather then address all of your worries, I want to stick to what I see as the biggest issues.

Small sources of power (electricity) can be generated by small hydor-electric set ups, or even by physical labor.
Water was onced pumped and grains ground, by people or animals walking on simple treadmills or inside of wheels. This same procedure can be duplicated to make electricity, using bicycles and electical motors.
Plants can be grown through hydrophonics.

A "Mad Max" world is still surviving and while it may be hard and difficult; it's still possible.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

 

[Dixie - In Memoriam]

Rather then address all of your worries, I want to stick to what I see as the biggest issues.

Let's be clear, I am not worried, and this isn't some kind of debate, we are both making speculations here. I just happen to speculate a world that would be much more difficult for humans to survive in, where you seem to think we could just bounce right back from whatever. Now, if we had a minor cataclysm, perhaps you are correct, but the scenario I suggested wipes out 2/3 of the population and fries all electronic devices. It might even destroy most of our atmosphere for a while... we don't know! We might be sent back to caves again! That's all I'm saying.

We know that events like this have happened in Earth's recorded history, we've just never been around for one of them. It's coming, sooner or later, the odds are not in our favor. Should such a thing happen... money, credit and debt... instantly mean nothing. Everything becomes about survival and existence, and our animal instincts kick in... the world will be a completely different place with completely different values and motivations.

 

[USFREEDOM911]

Let's be clear, I am not worried, and this isn't some kind of debate, we are both making speculations here. I just happen to speculate a world that would be much more difficult for humans to survive in, where you seem to think we could just bounce right back from whatever. Now, if we had a minor cataclysm, perhaps you are correct, but the scenario I suggested wipes out 2/3 of the population and fries all electronic devices. It might even destroy most of our atmosphere for a while... we don't know! We might be sent back to caves again! That's all I'm saying.

We know that events like this have happened in Earth's recorded history, we've just never been around for one of them. It's coming, sooner or later, the odds are not in our favor. Should such a thing happen... money, credit and debt... instantly mean nothing. Everything becomes about survival and existence, and our animal instincts kick in... the world will be a completely different place with completely different values and motivations.

I wasn't trying to disagree with you, per se.
I wasn't trying to say that society would "bounce back" to where we are now; but I do believe that there would be some kind of recovery, above that of cavemen.

If you look back at some of my past posts; you would see that I've stated many times that I'm more worried about a major catastrophy, then I am over society "collapsing" from what ever.

Yellowstone has a major volcano that is past it's history of eruptions - the earth is well past it's history of a major metor strike - etc.
Now tie in the possibility of a resistant strain of some virus and things could go ugly really fast.

I've said before that after the death count, from the initial cause, that probably 1/2 of those left would probably die; because they don't have the ability or desire to take care of themselves.

I've said before that I have this cartoon I need to have drawn and it paints the following picture.

Someone enters a grocery store, years after the cause of the disaster, and finds a skeleton holding an military old style can opener and the shelves are full of canned food.