7 billion people and growing. Is the critical threshold here yet?

[News & Issues]

Kurt Vonnegut wrote this list of surrender terms--if the planet could state them--in his autobiography "Fates Worse Than Death":

1. Reduce and stabilize your population.
2. Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.
3. Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.
4. Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you're at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.
5. Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.
6. Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean and stupid.
7. And so on. Or else. 

Share your opinions on the environmental and economic dilemmas facing us in the near future. Can we fix anything? Is it exaggeration on my part: a greedy plea to see the world perish with me? (All those doomsday Christian prophets fall for this line of logic often.)

[Chester]

I WAS THE 5,161,110, 685TH PERSON ALIVE ON EARTH

AND I AM THE 80, 152, 226, 994TH PERSON TO HAVE LIVED SINCE HISTORY BEGAN.

wow isn't that fucking fascinating. TRY IT YOURSELVES GUYS http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515

 

[andrew h]

EAT BABIES!

[Josie M]

i was the 4,640,817,357th person and 79,342,702,724th person to have lived since history began.  Average life expectancy is 80.5 years.   fuck im old and they want me to live till my tits hit the floor =[

[WaterFish22]

 

I had to post this video, on the environment, because sometimes I really wonder who are we really saving the environment for? Isn't the humans race going to live on this planet until we can't live on it any more! At what point do we decide we really need to take action? Maybe the world can support more then 7 billion people or will virus take over.

[andrew h]

SAVE THE TREES, SAVE THE BEES, SAVE THE WHALES, SAVE THOSE SNAILS!

[Ashley]

Your entire post does not make any sense, just so you know. It isn't the developed countries that's the problem, which is suggested. Or that America is the problem, which may also be suggested and isn't entirely true. The world isn't 7 billion people strong because of the Americans, whose population growth has been on a steady downturn.

 

And this is all really dumb anyways, because the Earth is going to be just fine. We can't kill it. We can kill off ourselves, but ain't nothing going to poison the Earth. Renewing-its what's its good at. Geology 101.

[Ashley]

But it DOESNT MAKE SENSE. These would not be the planet's terms.

 

Reduce and stabilize your population. --- Nobody is going to do this on their own accord because they CANT. Population growth is inevitable when you do not have a predator or a food source keeping you in check. Suppose 3/4ths of the world's population die because of a wheat virus and everyone eats that tainted wheat and bam they die. Almost immediately, people are going to have babies. That is what we do. We are animals. We have an inherit need, a ... i dont know... inner fixation that says we have to mate and spread our genes. That's the way survival works. We are never going to have a stabilized population the world over. It is not possible on our own. And if this was a condition of the world, it would be the WORLD and our environment to keep us in check. That is its role. That is what it does. It has, and it will. So no, I reject this one completely. Its the environments role to regulate populations, not the species because no species is able to regulate that on themselves.

 

Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil. - Dumb. This wouldn't be a problem for the Earth since we are helping the environment by poisoning.. get this.. ourselves. Helping a die off that desperately needs to take place. The Earth will renew all of these things. It always has, it always will.

 

Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems. - This doesn't make sense!!!!!!!!!! Why would this be a condition of the planet? We kill off ourselves. So what? It doesn't care. It doesn't give a shit about us.

 

Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you're at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it. - THIS DOESNT MAKE SENSE. WE ARE NOT KILLING THE EARTH. We are killing ourselves. BIG DIFFERENCE.

 

Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars. - Funny, you want us to stabilize our own population, not poison the topsoil, teach ourselves, yet science is a no-no. The planet does not care about us or our fake money or our meaningless discoveries so.... dumb.

 

Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean and stupid. - We will never achieve space exploration or find a habitable planet because we have no learned to work with each other or respect each other. You have to attain that before you could take on something of this magnitude and have it not end in failure. Also, why the planet would even give a shit about any of this is beyond me.

 

This is not cynical. This is the way things are. The Earth does not care. And why should it? Everything is as it is.

People want to confuse saving the Earth with saving ourselves. We are incapable of doing either. Maybe once we come to terms with that and realize everything we do is out of pure unfiltered selfishness, maybe we will have a chance.

 

Or maybe I just identify too strongly to a particular philosophy and that is completely shaping my view of "saving mother earth". But its soo stupid. So dumb. I hate to say it AGAIN, but everything is as it is. The Earth will renew itself. We cannot help it and these terms are so outrageously BAD its clear that they are made purely with the intention to keep our species around.

 

My view, the only "terms" the planet would have is this, and it isn't even really a term, but it makes the most sense to and for us: 

 

[PhonyMcRingRing]

I can't help but feel like...you might have somewhat missed the point of a lot of what kurt was saying. I don't blame you. It's not your fault. He was from a different time.

[Ashley]

It is possible I did and do but the way I'm reading it, its the exact traditional confusion of what the planet wants vs whats going to keep us around longer and this essentially read like to me that foundation of that stupiiiiiidd shitttt. I understand that this was meant to be from the planet to us but written by us. It isn't deep or anything at all.

[PhonyMcRingRing]

I've been trying to not write quite so many long rants here as i used to...I'm starting to feel like they make me sound like the most annoying inhabitant of planet Vulcan. I think the part of Kurt's thinking that you're missing is his tremendous sense of...i guess...empathy...From his other books i got the sense that while he wasn't a spiritual man in the traditional sense of the word, he sensed a profound oneness in the cosmos. A kind of gentle, loving concern, like a parent that has decided to let you go your own way, but still worries that you might fuck up your life. The time for that has passed - that's gay hippie shit now - but its the head-space he's writing from. His core assumption is that the planet itself wants us to be happy, and have a positive relationship with it. That may not be true in the literal sense, but I can see how caring for it leads to a better living situation for humans, which is desirable...

[23d2stpiuv9yi]

Were over due for a new superflu!! JUST SAYIN

[The Dope Show]

And the Duggars are still having babies.