No one "needs" to--there IS such a thing as a middle ground here. The main problem in your thinking is that a lot of the damage from industrialization has already happened. We industrialized in a completely irresponsible fashion, and permanently scarred the earth. As a result, however, people are living more longer, more comfortable lives. If we manage to reduce our numbers down to the one million or so range and discard our old harmful technology, then the earth is still permanently scarred and we don't have anything to show for it. As scientific knowledge increases, however, we're finding safer ways to do what we've been doing. Will we find safe enough ways fast enough? I don't know. But I'm a stubborn person, and I refuse to believe that we destroyed countless cultures, took hundreds of millions of lives, condemned a few billion more to poverty and squalor, and did irreparable harm to the environment in vain. I think it's ridiculous to throw away all hope of ever getting this whole thiing to work on the slim chance that what you're asking for could actually ever work.

i just dont woant to be a part of the distruction of our world.

No one "needs" to--there IS such a thing as a middle ground here. The main problem in your thinking is that a lot of the damage from industrialization has already happened. We industrialized in a completely irresponsible fashion, and permanently scarred the earth. As a result, however, people are living more longer, more comfortable lives. If we manage to reduce our numbers down to the one million or so range and discard our old harmful technology, then the earth is still permanently scarred and we don't have anything to show for it. As scientific knowledge increases, however, we're finding safer ways to do what we've been doing. Will we find safe enough ways fast enough? I don't know. But I'm a stubborn person, and I refuse to believe that we destroyed countless cultures, took hundreds of millions of lives, condemned a few billion more to poverty and squalor, and did irreparable harm to the environment in vain. I think it's ridiculous to throw away all hope of ever getting this whole thiing to work on the slim chance that what you're asking for could actually ever work.

it could work. we would just have to learn to be hunter gatherers again.

i just dont woant to be a part of the distruction of our world.

Well, now that's where you're screwed. Sad fact is, your merely living is contributing to the Earth's decay. As you read this post, your computer is using electricity which was likely generated by burning greenhouse-inducing fossil fuels or deadly contaminating radiation. If you're lucky, it was produced hydroelectrically, with a dam that only happened to wipe out several major marine populations.

And ask yourself this, jobe--what do you think the chances are that your ideal society is ever going to come about? How do you propose that 6 billion people reduce themselves to 1 million in such a short manner without causing astoundingly more devastation than they were before? We're still some time away from overpopulating to the point that we would actually use up so many of the resources necessary to life that the human population would shrink so much. We're similarly a very long ways away from being so universally enlightened as to willingly sacrifice our profusiveness in order to save the Earth. So now we arrive at war. Do you think that we would actually end up in a war that would kill off 6 billion people strictly through conventional means? The only way that many people are going down is through masssive, widespread thermonuclear warfare. And if we detonated enough nukes to eliminate 6 billion people... bye bye, all life on Earth. What's left--environmental catastrophe? This one's probably a lot more possible... but likely's another story. It's POSSIBLE that a sudden new virus of unknown deadliness could wipe out 99% of the human race and then die out itself, but most possible "natural" disasters that would be destructive enough to cause a drastic enough population decrease would be in the same boat as nuking the human race down into the millions--probably more likely to leave the Earth habitable by SOMETHING, but not us. And, in the unlikely event that a "natural" disaster causes exactly enough destruction to kill off 6 billion people and then doesn't do any collateral damage to the Earth itself... what do you think the odds are that those remaining people are going to be able to create a perfectly self-sustaining society that will neither die out nor fall into the destructive cycle of progress that we did?

On 6/30/01 5:57 pm jobe wrote:

No one "needs" to--there IS such a thing as a middle ground here. The main problem in your thinking is that a lot of the damage from industrialization has already happened. We industrialized in a completely irresponsible fashion, and permanently scarred the earth. As a result, however, people are living more longer, more comfortable lives. If we manage to reduce our numbers down to the one million or so range and discard our old harmful technology, then the earth is still permanently scarred and we don't have anything to show for it. As scientific knowledge increases, however, we're finding safer ways to do what we've been doing. Will we find safe enough ways fast enough? I don't know. But I'm a stubborn person, and I refuse to believe that we destroyed countless cultures, took hundreds of millions of lives, condemned a few billion more to poverty and squalor, and did irreparable harm to the environment in vain. I think it's ridiculous to throw away all hope of ever getting this whole thiing to work on the slim chance that what you're asking for could actually ever work.

it could work. we would just have to learn to be hunter gatherers again.

I'm curious about exactly six things here.

1) Where did you arrive at the magic number of "1 million" as being the appropriate number of humans on the planet?

2) How are you going to keep the population at exactly 1 million, in a primitive society? Broadly speaking, the more primitive your society, the more important it is to reproduce like rabbits... each parent producing two children isn't going to give you "zero population growth" unless you have the means to make sure that each and every one of those children survives to reproduce themselves (and you'll still end up with genetic dead-ends like myself).

3) How are you going to keep tabs on 1,000,000 people, especially if they're spread far across the earth? You'd have to keep a close eye out to makethat no one's raping the earth or reproducing like rabbits, right? What about life after the Great Jobe has departed? Don't you think in a hundred years everything would be back to the way it was?

4) If you managed to cause some sort of socioeconomic collapse, how is a wannabe-treehugging peacenik like you going to wrest power away from all the petty overlords, despots, and tin tyrants that would inevitably spring up? However you'd do it, I'm guessing there wouldn't be a movie deal.

And finally, and most importantly....

5) How would life be better for anybody if we had 1,000,000 people who were miserable the entire duration of their short lives, instead of 6,000,000,000 people who experience a wide range of conditions and emotions over the course of their comparatively long lives? You said it yourself... we're living longer, happier lives now... and you ask, what do we have to show for it? LONGER, HAPPIER LIVES. Duh. This is what NATURE drives species to seek. Yeah, remember, Nature, that thing you're doing this for?

You know what, Jobe? You're young. You have something that resembles idealism. That's something resembling commendable. But you don't know anything... about nature (human and otherwise), economics, sociology, ecology, *cough*gamedesign*cough*... I'm glad that you can imagine fantastic things, but I hope that at some point, what you're imagining... both in term's of the earth's present situation and what you imagine as your ideal society, both your fantasy and "realistic" version of it... are just imaginings.

This world is a wonderful place, and it's getting better all the time. Bad statistics are going down. Good statistics are going up. We'd each fit into our own modest plot of land in Texas and the United States produces enough grain to feed the entire world. How can there be too many people if that's so? And don't tell me that the population is too dense if you can see your nearest neighbor... in a primitive hunter/gathering society, your nearest neighbor would either sleep two feet away from you, or you'd be an outcast, doomed to die.

I think the problem you have with our modern society, Jobe, is that it's too boring for your like. There's not enough adventure for people like you. You need guns. You need glory. You need revolution. You need to be Mad Max or Robin Hood: 2012 or someone like that. So you imagine a better (more exciting world.) You imagine a reason why it's necessary, to make it seem more tangible. You make it real.

You know what? That's something all of us have done. It's something we all continue to do. We're artists. We're creators. We're world-designers. We look at the world and say, "My God, why not?"

So keep doing whatever it is you're doing. Just keep some perspective, too.

and also, the idea is to take it a little slower. you dont exactly KILL anyone, but instead you make the "ULTRAL COOL GENETICLY ENGINEERED CHILDER OF YOUR DREAMS" and sell it right for verry cheap but make it so they are sterile. then only the verry poor(who are more amune to things seeing as they have not been courupeted and have lived in bad conditions) and the peaple who are smart enof to know that messing with nature is bad (and so will have more of a chance to build a world smartly useing energy that is not harmfull to build there world)

wow,

ok, yeah im not actually going to DO anything... but i still like to bitch about it=)

In fact, I say to Nature, "Bring it on!"

This world is a wonderful place, and it's getting better all the time. Bad statistics are going down. Good statistics are going up. We'd each fit into our own modest plot of land in Texas and the United States produces enough grain to feed the entire world. How can there be too many people if that's so?

I think the problem you have with our modern society, Jobe, is that it's too boring for your like. There's not enough adventure for people like you. You need guns. You need glory. You need revolution. You need to be Mad Max or Robin Hood: 2012 or someone like that. So you imagine a better (more exciting world.) You imagine a reason why it's necessary, to make it seem more tangible. You make it real.