The Green Room

[john peck]

I've mentioned weather control a few times. I haven't seen much that looks promising yet, but I suspect that workable weather control is going be be needed (and is partially developed already) as a part of mitigating climate change.

But the politics of having China able to shut off water to India or the USA able to shut off water to Mexico, as well as a general distrust of the advocates of Geoengineering ( Chemtrails ? ) will make it a tough sell even if it's "completely safe when used as directed" as the admen used to say. And the economics of near real time weather control sound like a rerun of the Enron story . Just thinking out loud here.

Desalinization springs to mind.

 

[john peck]

Herd immunity? okay....Herd mentality....eh, not so much.

 

[Art Deco]

Impact is population multiplied by energy use ... modified by technology . Ebikes use maybe a tenth of the energy cars would use to get me to the office .

 

[Art Deco]

I see Birth Control as technology modifing our other variable Population and probably in a unknowable and unstoppable feedback loop. @john peck might see an intellect here,

 

[Art Deco]

@Catalyzt the idea of figuring out the why the population decline never occurred to me. The pill existed, we used it as is expected for transforming technology. I credit the pill.

 

[Mulezen]

@Catalyzt the idea of figuring out the why the population decline never occurred to me. The pill existed, we used it as is expected for transforming technology. I credit the pill.

Yeah…you and Loretta Lynn

 

[Art Deco]

I had to google Loretta Lynn from a long time ago

 

[Mulezen]

So many countries, as income rises, have declining birth rates…even China…esp Russia. Germany has welcomed many Turks. I suspect we will become more welcoming towards Latin America.
LL’s song about the pill was a sensation at the time and is still played

 

[Catalyzt]

@Catalyzt the idea of figuring out the why the population decline never occurred to me. The pill existed, we used it as is expected for transforming technology. I credit the pill.

Sorry to be dense, but I can't quite follow this... I'm skipping back and forth between writing notes and web surfing and cleaning my house and office-- remarkably inefficient, but there you have it! Please bear with me...

I don't think of population as declining, though the rate of increase is declining in the US. Some countries have declining birth rates, but like the virus, overpopulation is a global problem. I worry about the consumption side as much as the excretion/pollution issue; in Catalyzt's brain, these are all part of a single construct.

You guys would have loved one of my favorite blogs from the 2010s, it was called The Oil Drum. I spent a lot of time there, some of it arguing pointlessly with a nuclear engineer from Sweden... God, that guy made my blood boil (and probably vice versa. We were quite civil, but quite heard.) But I also met a brilliant organic chemist there who lived in a van in the parking lot of The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City-- he gave me and one of my colleagues a tour of the place after hours. He convinced me it was safe to surf after Fukushima, and taught me a lot about how to read psychopharm research. ("No," he would sigh, "That's not a benzene ring. It's a ridiculous compound to use for depression, looks more like an antihistamine, but nothing like benzene.")

I have to give "The Pill" a listen, I do remember it vaguely! My favorite '70s feminist country song has gotta be "Harper Valley PTA."

My eBike will never replace my car, but as much as I love my cars-- and I still enjoy driving-- I do a lot less of it since the pando started, like 90% less. I have started using the bike for some errands-- cash machine and mail drop, so that drops my carbon footprint a bit-- but I can't lock my bike anywhere, just isn't safe here.

I do feel like eBiking is more fun than driving, probably partly because it's still more dangerous. It's opened up a whole new world. Last night I was rescuing lost hikers in Griffith Park and passing BMWs in Vermont Canyon... who would have guessed my early 60s would be filled with so many surprises? My parents did tell me this happened, but for some reason, I never believed them.

 

[Art Deco]

Sorry to be dense, but I can't quite follow this... I'm skipping back and forth between writing notes and web surfing and cleaning my house and office-- remarkably inefficient, but there you have it! Please bear with me...

I don't think of population as declining, though the rate of increase is declining in the US. Some countries have declining birth rates, but like the virus, overpopulation is a global problem. I worry about the consumption side as much as the excretion/pollution issue; in Catalyzt's brain, these are all part of a single construct.

You guys would have loved one of my favorite blogs from the 2010s, it was called The Oil Drum. I spent a lot of time there, some of it arguing pointlessly with a nuclear engineer from Sweden... God, that guy made my blood boil (and probably vice versa. We were quite civil, but quite heard.) But I also met a brilliant organic chemist there who lived in a van in the parking lot of The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City-- he gave me and one of my colleagues a tour of the place after hours. He convinced me it was safe to surf after Fukushima, and taught me a lot about how to read psychopharm research. ("No," he would sigh, "That's not a benzene ring. It's a ridiculous compound to use for depression, looks more like an antihistamine, but nothing like benzene.")

I have to give "The Pill" a listen, I do remember it vaguely! My favorite '70s feminist country song has gotta be "Harper Valley PTA."

My eBike will never replace my car, but as much as I love my cars-- and I still enjoy driving-- I do a lot less of it since the pando started, like 90% less. I have started using the bike for some errands-- cash machine and mail drop, so that drops my carbon footprint a bit-- but I can't lock my bike anywhere, just isn't safe here.

I do feel like eBiking is more fun than driving, probably partly because it's still more dangerous. It's opened up a whole new world. Last night I was rescuing lost hikers in Griffith Park and passing BMWs in Vermont Canyon... who would have guessed my early 60s would be filled with so many surprises? My parents did tell me this happened, but for some reason, I never believed them.

I still follow one or two writers ( Ugo Bardi mostly) from the oil drum days, although I never contributed there. Population and Consumption, Extraction and Pollution are all measures of one system. all one big "construct" as you say. And I still check my copy of "limits to growth" occasionally to see where we are in relation to the very first computer model of that system. That was a program that ran on a computer much more limited than a phone today, BTW, and still seems to be pretty accurate .
The link to eBikes is the immense saving of energy by not hauling two tons of metal ( an electric car) everywhere we go. Some times that is needed, but usually not.

 

[Mulezen]

One episode of the amazing pod cast “Rhinestones & Cocaine”…an overview of country music…this episode was of Bobbi Gentry. Loretta Lynn and others speaking to the flux of the times.

 

[john peck]

I see Birth Control as technology modifing our other variable Population and probably in a unknowable and unstoppable feedback loop. @john peck might see an intellect here,

Yeah, that´s a useful plan, but may need some time to take effect. Ya still have to supply it to the great
unwashed & convince ´em to use it. The quick way to effect it would be to sterilize mankind disguised
as vaccine. No worry, I´ve made my contribution to the gene pool.

 

[Art Deco]

i am a boomer. My grandmother raised seven children, my own mother three, my wife and I had two girls. One daughter had two boys and stopped. The other told me that the only grandchildren she would contribute will have four legs and a tail. That's a big drop in four generations especially compared to the exponential growth projected for my generation.

We are the first generation ever to grow up with really effective birth control. As far as sterilization goes, it isn't targeted like birth control can be. One woman, one decision.

It's also a fact that fertility in men has dropped across the whole economic spectrum of the "western world", as well as women having the pill and better information etc. Whatever the causes, it looks like a rapid decline in population of the highest consuming humans will happen even without disease, starvation, or violence .
That's without three of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Generally though, they all came by together in the past, and probably will again.

 

[Art Deco]

One episode of the amazing pod cast “Rhinestones & Cocaine”…an overview of country music…this episode was of Bobbi Gentry. Loretta Lynn and others speaking to the flux of the times.

I had only occasional contact with country and bluegrass music when my ears still worked well enough to really like music. Some Linda Rhondstat and Dolly Parton.

 

[Mulezen]

I grew up a kid with Patsy Cline as sometime babysitter; forJohnny Cash mom cooked breakfast before a show and others, so normal then but looking back…

 

[Art Deco]

I grew up a kid with Patsy Cline as sometime babysitter; forJohnny Cash mom cooked breakfast before a show and others, so normal then but looking back…

i didn't even go to a real concert until my early twenties and the only instrument I could play was the radio .

 

[6zfshdb]

i am a boomer. My grandmother raised seven children, my own mother three, my wife and I had two girls. One daughter had two boys and stopped. The other told me that the only grandchildren she would contribute will have four legs and a tail. That's a big drop in four generations especially compared to the exponential growth projected for my generation.

We are the first generation ever to grow up with really effective birth control. As far as sterilization goes, it isn't targeted like birth control can be. One woman, one decision.

It's also a fact that fertility in men has dropped across the whole economic spectrum of the "western world", as well as women having the pill and better information etc. Whatever the causes, it looks like a rapid decline in population of the highest consuming humans will happen even without disease, starvation, or violence .
That's without three of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Generally though, they all came by together in the past, and probably will again.

While this is mostly true, fewer births are offset, at least in part, by the decline in the infant mortality rate.

Child mortality rate

The estimated share of newborns who die before reaching the age of five.

ourworldindata.org

Families had more children 100 years ago because many didn't survive.

 

[Art Deco]

Very true. My grandmother bore two more children than she raised to adulthood. And it's still true in much of the world, I guess.

 

[john peck]

i am a boomer. My grandmother raised seven children, my own mother three, my wife and I had two girls. One daughter had two boys and stopped. The other told me that the only grandchildren she would contribute will have four legs and a tail. That's a big drop in four generations especially compared to the exponential growth projected for my generation.

We are the first generation ever to grow up with really effective birth control. As far as sterilization goes, it isn't targeted like birth control can be. One woman, one decision.

It's also a fact that fertility in men has dropped across the whole economic spectrum of the "western world", as well as women having the pill and better information etc. Whatever the causes, it looks like a rapid decline in population of the highest consuming humans will happen even without disease, starvation, or violence .
That's without three of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Generally though, they all came by together in the past, and probably will again.

A lot of Native American women didn´t get to make that decision & were sterilized involuntarily. As far
as male infertility goes, you can thank estrogen finding it´s way into urban water systems, that & fear
of bringing a child into this insane world.

 

[Westlafadeaway]

A lot of Native American women didn´t get to make that decision & were sterilized involuntarily. As far
as male infertility goes, you can thank estrogen finding it´s way into urban water systems, that & fear
of bringing a child into this insane world.

This was true in the last century across the board- the Eugenics movement was a racist push that mirrored what Hitler was doing but we did it under the guise of "due process." We claimed Italians were inherently inferior, eastern Europeans too. We also believed we should steralize stupid people and the court's agreed with it We still limit Eastern Europeans more than western Europeans.

See Buck v Bell: https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/buck-v-bell-1927 She got pregnant and the foster parents argued there was a history of imbecility's in the family and so they should be sterilized, but later on a researcher found out the girl had normal intelligence but the family just couldn't stand their foster kid got pregnant. Los Angeles sterilized 10,000 poor women over decades- if they were on welfare, right after giving birth, they'd have them sign a form and not tell them they were being sterilized. They thought they were doing good for our species.

There's a great book by Gould, "the mismeasure of man" that highlights the pseudo-science behind the Eugenics movement- like scoring intelligence of race by filling skulls with weights (bb's) and a smaller skull was evidence of a smaller brain. But Gould recreated the tests and just jiggled the skulls and found that it was easy enough to shake the skulls to fit more bb's/weights. Gould concludes that there was so much racism in the Eugenics movement that much of their "findings" were accepted because of the strong racist tendencies in the movement that they willingly wanted to overlook the stupidity in their claims.