Water&Food
New Member
That was a good one! :lol:wrcmad said:That was tounge in cheek.wrcmad said:Umm... that was Mars....
Keep reproducing folks, because you can never have too many people
- Thread starter Black_Sun
- Start date
grinners said:
I guess they will have to move the Qld. borders a bit and people will have to learn to farm sand in 110 degree heat without water. The upside of course is that with 7 billion mortgages our banks will be able to pay some good share dividends.
Water&Food
New Member
^^^ Bob Hawke did come close to treaty.
Victoria and NSW were going to be named "New Queensland" or something like that, and all the rest of Australia was going to be left to the invaders.
Victoria and NSW were going to be named "New Queensland" or something like that, and all the rest of Australia was going to be left to the invaders.
There are a huge numbers of slaves already, people working for the minimum wage in the US, factory workers in China, Pakistan construction workers and house help in the Middle East. There is an illusion of freedom for them.
I would "pay" a slave $6.00 an hour (that must be around minimum wage in the US now?)and feed them and they could live under my house, I may even build a shed in the back yard for them. Then they could pay for their food and accomodation, electricity etc which would leave them say $2.00 an hour....... That is good money for a huge proportion of the population.
I would "pay" a slave $6.00 an hour (that must be around minimum wage in the US now?)and feed them and they could live under my house, I may even build a shed in the back yard for them. Then they could pay for their food and accomodation, electricity etc which would leave them say $2.00 an hour....... That is good money for a huge proportion of the population.
All you jokers that think we have enough arable land to feed a doubling in population? Top soil figures and potash reserves alone make that laughable. There is a very good reason BHP attempted a $38.6B take-over of Potash corp. Why would the worlds largest and arguably best run mining company want to diversify so heavily in fertilizer? Hint, they don't need that much for explosives.
When talking about population and resources, and when I hear people say there arn't enough resources to go around,....... I cant help but think....Image if all of the effort, resources, materials etc. that were put into war since 1900 were actually used to help the people of the earth.
I dont think the lack of resources are the problem here, its the allocation and what we do with them.
How much excess food could the west have transported and distributed to third world countries if the oil that was burnt in the tanks/hummers/fighter jets were used for cargo ships.
When you think about it, its really sad at how much resources governments have wasted. Cant get out of my head how much oil has burnt for War, those tanks aren't exactly fuel efficient.
I dont think the lack of resources are the problem here, its the allocation and what we do with them.
How much excess food could the west have transported and distributed to third world countries if the oil that was burnt in the tanks/hummers/fighter jets were used for cargo ships.
When you think about it, its really sad at how much resources governments have wasted. Cant get out of my head how much oil has burnt for War, those tanks aren't exactly fuel efficient.
Lovey80 said:
Easily more than enough arable land. It's simply a matter of cost. Using potash and fertilisers are simply a cheaper way of producing the food. We could quadruple our population and still have the resources required to feed the population (albeit probably at the expense of a feeding a few hundred other species to the same extent but that's all part of the trade off).
Scarcity of food and scarcity of the cheap foods we currently enjoy are two completely different things but all too often get confused. There isn't a shortage of lobsters in the world, there's a "shortage" of supply compared to what we are willing to pay.
Dogmatix
Active Member
hussman said:
This is a good point... but would it be wise to transport food to countries that don't have enough in the long-term? I understand short-term food shortages should be supported, but what is the point of prolonging a losing situation if a country continues to overpopulate vs their resources, and requires continual 'aid' in order to manage the overpopulation?
The discussion gets a bit moral/ethical from here I guess.
One of the injustices of the world that sticks in my mind is the use of good grains for biofuels/ethanol in the USA, and the feeding of good grains to animals like pigs, which drives up the price of grain worldwide and causes unnecessary starvation or hardship. The US Govt subsidises such biofuels production (which encourages it, even if it is normally unprofitable) and they have plentiful and cheap pig meat.
There are larger issues behind that of course - the major one being the US's 'exhorbitant privilege' of having the world reserve currency.
bordsilver said:
It is hard to say that fertilizers are a "cheaper" way of producing food. More like a necessary ingredient to achieve current output. This fear of not being able to feed the growing population was around hundreds of years ago. We currently produce about 4 times per Sqm more than those days because of fertilizers and modern methods of farming.
If you discount cutting down crucial forrests to make more arable land available, our ability to increase not only our current arable land but how much we can produce from it is very limited. You may be able to do so, so that the current population is starvation free but I highly doubt it could be done for 21 billion people.
Dogmatix said:
Well said, if you take away any humanitarian feelings towards famine intervention and look at it through black and white eyes, then the logical conclusion is that major parts of areas like Africa simply have a biomass problem. As previously stated, some cultures have big families and big parts of them don't survive. Would it not be more prudent to limit your families to 1 or 2 children in order for them to have the biggest chance of survival through less mouths to actually feed?
It will take a long time to change this cultural problem. As the west helps them achieve higher production from their land, higher numbers of people will survive and create the biomass problem again but albeit at a level much harder for humanitarian efforts to help. Changing the cultural problem faster than the food production problem is the key IMO. That will be very hard to do with religious beliefs (catholic and Muslim) being a significant factor.
I think India will be a significant problem world wide in the next couple of decades.
Lovey80 said:
Well said. This was essentially the same point hotel46 and I agreed on earlier on this thread (page 1 I think). Education of what is stifling certain economies from being able to produce enough food (or enough other goods and services to trade for food) is critical to effecting real changes for the better of everyone. The hard part is trying to look at the problem dispassionately when you can see very real suffering. Continual handouts don't aid anyone in the long term.
Religious beliefs can be harder to change since the indoctrination of the next generation happens from birth but it can happen rapidly (as we have seen - and still seeing - in the west) once people are free enough to choose. Italians were famous for having big families and now they have one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
Dogmatix said:
I understand what your trying to get at, However there are allot of new technologies which instead of being used for bad could be used for good. E.g. GMO foods, and the latests energy patents which get bought up by mega corporations (latest case I heard was the world bank buying up a patent for imporoved solar panels which provided more energy and were much cheaper to make). Fact is we could talk about a hypothetical/ideal world for hours on end. Reality is a lot worse unfortunately. Most of the ruling class prefer the profits to the moral/ethical situation at hand.
Most of us have to thank our lucky stars that we were born in a western country and not in Africa or some other third world country.
Water&Food
New Member
So, what is your Final solution then?Lovey80 said:
If it turns out to be you & I left promise me you will be gentle :lol:hotel 46 said:half the population, who is worried if the world population is shrinking, by the time we get down to two guys eyeing each other thinking to themselves now were in da shyte we will be generations gone, dont even have to kick this can down the road. same with over population, the usa will nuke them
Water&Food
New Member
:lol: That came out wrong!renovator said:
: