Topical Discussion - Please try to get overly angry/upset

[Cyfr]

Has nothing to do with population... look at the highest suicide rates in the world, Lithuania, its no where near the most densley populated country

[Satyn]

Has nothing to do with population... look at the highest suicide rates in the world, Lithuania, its no where near the most densley populated country

but in some parts of the world it does have a big impact on ppl's minds.

[Cyfr]

Such as?

[Xest]

Most of Africa's problems are social. If the embraced capitalism (or even just a moderately free market + democracy), they would be alot better off. Capitalist countries don't have famines.

It's largely to do with the terrain and the temperature there, it's just too hot to grow a decent crop yield and that's generally the cause of the famines there. Much like you can't do anything with the northern areas of Canada/Russia because it's too cold, you can't do much with large portions of Africa because it's just too hot. The night picture illustrates this nicely, look at Africa at the bottom of the picture, the Sahara is entirely uninhabited other than near rivers and the coast. The same goes for the arctic regions at the top of the map that you can faintly see.

Yeah, look at all the black spots , if it was overpopulated, there would be only light. Also, some overpopulated regions are probably darker.

Nearly all those black spots are essential to our survival - fields to grow crops, forests to provide oxygen, lakes(resevoirs) to provide water. We can't simply populate those areas without dying anyway due to starvation, drought and so on. I think the key is we can't live healthily already, it's no coincidence things like asthma rates and such have risen over the years, it's entirely due to the fact we have more pollutants and not enough natural forested areas to counter them.

The other thing to remember is that the Earth seems to be struggling to deal with all the polution and waste we produce already, global warming is a result of such a high world population all polluting together. Technology can solve some of the issues somewhat, for example some uninhabitable areas could be made habitable at a massive expense, pollution could be cut drastically but again it all comes down to money.

[Lieva]

from what it seems like

the amazon COULD cope with all the carbon dioxide
I recall a report ages ago
Some of the trees in the amazon have actually continued growing far past their normal growth rate.
This is mother natures way of combatting our polution.

trouble is greedy people are carting away the forest quicker than it grows.
So no matter how we look at it .. in X amount of years - we will need to produce our own oxygen to breathe on this planet because we would have killed it.
Hope it doesnt happen in my life time but im not that lucky

[Lairiodd]

It's largely to do with the terrain and the temperature there, it's just too hot to grow a decent crop yield and that's generally the cause of the famines there. Much like you can't do anything with the northern areas of Canada/Russia because it's too cold, you can't do much with large portions of Africa because it's just too hot. The night picture illustrates this nicely, look at Africa at the bottom of the picture, the Sahara is entirely uninhabited other than near rivers and the coast. The same goes for the arctic regions at the top of the map that you can faintly see.

Africa is a continent so has some variation in climate, there is arable land there. However, granted it is alot hotter than Europe and the deserts aren't productive in that regard. Climate does have an effect, but if they had stable governments and no wars, they would have little to no famines. Food isn't really that expensive in the greater scheme of things, especially if the country is not at the subsistance agriculture level. This is especially true, if people want food just for living rather than recreational eating. Worst case, if their ecomony was not pathological, they could import for the years that the harvest is not optimal.

The UK as an example, currently doesn't produce enough food for the population, however, there is no starvation as the economy is functional.

Nearly all those black spots are essential to our survival - fields to grow crops, forests to provide oxygen, lakes(resevoirs) to provide water. We can't simply populate those areas without dying anyway due to starvation, drought and so on.

One option would be to have multi level farms with fusion (when it comes) powered lighting. That way you could make much better use of land area for agriculture. OTOH, it would probably be cheaper to just import the food.


Anyway, some statistics from CIA worldbook

Ireland:
Arable land: 10,333 km2
Population: 4,015,676
Arable land per person: 2573 m2

UK:
Arable land: 56,677 km2
Population: 60,441,457
Arable land per person: 938m2

Japan:
Arable land: 46,058 km2
Population: 127,417,244
Arable land per person: 361m2

USA:
Arable land: 1,752,675 km2
Population: 295,734,134
Arable land per person: 5926m2

Ethiopia
Arable land: 113,871 km2
Population: 73,053,286
Arable land per person: 1558m2

Zimbabwe
Arable land: 32,170 km2
Population: 12,746,990
Arable land per person: 2523m2

South Africa
Arable land: 147,365 km2
Population: 44,344,136
Arable land per person: 3323m2

Algeria
Arable land: 76,692 km2 (This is only 3% of the total though)
Population: 32,531,853
Arable land per person: 2357 m2

The US has a very low population density relative to the amount of arable land.

All the African countries I checked have more arable land per person than the UK. Algeria has very low arable land, but it also has a low population. Even if you argue that their arable land isn't as good, they still have a reasonable amount of it.

Japan which is highly unlikely to have a famine has an even lower amount of arable land, I wonder if it is the lowest in the world.

[Lairiodd]

from what it seems like

the amazon COULD cope with all the carbon dioxide
I recall a report ages ago
Some of the trees in the amazon have actually continued growing far past their normal growth rate.
This is mother natures way of combatting our polution.

trouble is greedy people are carting away the forest quicker than it grows.
So no matter how we look at it .. in X amount of years - we will need to produce our own oxygen to breathe on this planet because we would have killed it.
Hope it doesnt happen in my life time but im not that lucky

Plant life grows faster as the CO2 levels increase. It is like a race, animals are converting O2 into CO2 and plants are converting CO2 back into O2. Since the air is nearly all oxygen (and nitrogen but that is not involved), it shows that plants "win".

The fact that the CO2 level is so low shows that in the "race", plants are winning. The CO2 levels are in the ppm (parts per million range). CO2 is around 0.037% of the air.

In any case, the forest doesn't belong to the "world", it belongs to the people who are cutting it down. If people want more trees, they should buy land and plant them.

[Gandelf]

Talking purely hypothetically (but entirely within the realms of possibility, even probability)...

What if an alien race, far superior to humans, with technology so advanced that we couldn't even begin to grasp how it worked, travelled across space and chose humans to be guinea-pigs for drugs testing. What if, to those aliens, we humans seemed far inferior (like mice are to us)... so inferior, that our language seemed like squeaks and our actions purely instinctive... eating, sleeping, reproducing etc?

Those aliens could use us at their whim, because we wouldn't be able to resist. Nothing we could do could stop them from using us for testing (except maybe we could bite their fingers, if they had them), the same as nothing that mice can do can stop us from using them. Surely, if a creature resists capture and trys to bite its captor, then it's really saying "Leave me alone!". Should we not respect that and not use it for testing?

Would you still think that drugs testing on inferior beings was still justifiable? Would we not have rights against aliens using us for testing?

[Lieva]

Plant life grows faster as the CO2 levels increase. It is like a race, animals are converting O2 into CO2 and plants are converting CO2 back into O2. Since the air is nearly all oxygen (and nitrogen but that is not involved), it shows that plants "win"..

not sure tbh

theyve mentioned on the news recently that near the amazon places ARE being affected with the amount of co2.
mainly because insted of chopping trees down theyre burning them.
I really dont know why but they are

[Lairiodd]

Talking purely hypothetically (but entirely within the realms of possibility, even probability)...

What if an alien race, far superior to humans, with technology so advanced that ....

Would you still think that drugs testing on inferior beings was still justifiable? Would we not have rights against aliens using us for testing?

Nope, because as I said the issue isn't actually relative power. We are smart enough to understand the basics of rights and so should the intelligent other race.

Having said that, if they wanted to treat us a guinea pigs then as you said there is little we could do about it.

However, it should be in their interests to negotiate. Unless the materials that we are made of are worth more to them than we are, then trade is worth it. The materials that make up a human are pretty low value compared to the value of the person him/herself. Why doesn't this race just use some asteroid somewhere?

Now, if their experiments require that we don't know they are happening ... .

Surely, if a creature resists capture and trys to bite its captor, then it's really saying "Leave me alone!". Should we not respect that and not use it for testing?

It should be saying "leave me alone and I will leave you alone".

The value to us of " ... and I will leave you alone" is less than the value of the testing. Also, it isn't even really making that offer as it doesn't understand it.

The fact remains that there is a fundamental difference between animals mental abilities and people's mental abilities.