Overshoot

[MythOfProgress]

So the overpopulation thing again. Agree to disagree.

it's a good thing that i don't have an opinion on this anymore than i do the temperature being 60 degrees, so it's not necessarily a matter of agreeing to disagreeing from where i'm coming from.

[erowind]

If I have the energy I will write a longer reply, but I'm not the person I once was on this forum and find myself doing that less and less with time. This discussion is good though and I welcome it in a place where my posts don't get downvoted into censorship or outright banned by the moderation team.

That said, I just want to make a comparatively short statement on Cuba's oil situation specifically and its relation to our own peak oil crises. My understanding of peak oil is that there is no sudden yield collapse. We don't just suddenly stop pulling oil out of the ground, it's a gradual multi-decade process that takes a good century from the peak to wind down in the same way that it wound up from the beginning of the industrial revolution. Oil extraction doesn't stop, the EROI gradually worsens and yield gradually draws down. Oil drawdown also doesn't account for other, albeit, dirtier forms of fossil fuels. There are genuinely enough coal reserves to keep industrial economies, especially declining ones, chugging along into the 22nd century. Now, is that a good plan? No, it's a stupid delayed suicide to not embrace degrowth but I don't see any evidence there will be a single year where supply is suddenly drawn down by double digit numbers barring "artificial" disruptions such as humans going to war with each other.

To contrast our own gradual decline in energy extraction Cuba's special period genuinely did see a 90% sudden reduction in oil imports, and they survived, albeit barely. Oil imports did get drawn back up after the special period ended but never anywhere near the levels prior to the USSR's collapse and they will decline more in the future, but Cuba is more prepared than almost anywhere in the world to handle that decline.

As for the rueters article, likely propaganda. Cuba is treated by our media in a similar fashion to North Korea despite the two countries being nothing alike. What I see in that article is a picture of a Cuban oil tanker, some Cubans sitting on a lawn in an nondescript location, some Cubans hanging out around a taxi, a group of Cubans from somewhere, and Cubans getting on a bus. All very uneventful pictures that have words to accompany them from a source I know is untrustworthy on the topic which means the words could be complete lies or highly biased partial truths.

But say the picture of the Cubans crowded around a gas station is true and there is in fact a gas station there if the camera were simply panned 180 degrees? So what? That's been the situation in Cuba cyclically since the 90s, it's nothing noteworthy or dire. The universities transitioning to online classes? In Cuba many of the universities are already decentralized to the local level, not that the news would tell us that, etc etc. Even if the figures quoted are true and Cuba's seen a ~30% drawdown in oil imports due to artificial constraints from the US blockade it doesn't add anything to an argument that peak oil globally will work like it has in Cuba nor does it imply that Cuba can't handle the drawdown when they've shown that they can.

[Vakanai]

So the overpopulation thing again. Agree to disagree.

it's a good thing that i don't have an opinion on this anymore than i do the temperature being 60 degrees, so it's not necessarily a matter of agreeing to disagreeing from where i'm coming from.

I think capitalism is a far more certain, real, and pressing existential threat than over population, and that much of what people really attribute to population is really caused by capitalism, such as deforestation, over fishing, continuing fossil fuel use, and others.

[erowind]

So the overpopulation thing again. Agree to disagree.

it's a good thing that i don't have an opinion on this anymore than i do the temperature being 60 degrees, so it's not necessarily a matter of agreeing to disagreeing from where i'm coming from.

I think capitalism is a far more certain, real, and pressing existential threat than over population, and that much of what people really attribute to population is really caused by capitalism, such as deforestation, over fishing, continuing fossil fuel use, and others.

This 100%, if I write a larger thing your point will be central. Over half of the worlds resource consumption is caused by the richest 10% globally. There's a good 45% of resource consumption that could be immediately stopped with no real consequence on quality of life. Resource consumption proportions don't even get into how inefficient capitalism is either as a production and distribution system. Why make 1000s of different copies of a product all at varying quality levels that are all designed to be thrown out in 1-15 years when a few dozen variants or less could be made to last as long as possible sometimes even beyond the lifespan of a single generation? If we were genuinely trying our best as a species we could support the current population with magnitudes less ecological impact. I'm not a seasoned ecologist so I don't know the exact statistics. But efficiency gains would be manifold.

[Vakanai]

This 100%, if I write a larger thing your point will be central. Over half of the worlds resource consumption is caused by the richest 10% globally. There's a good 45% of resource consumption that could be immediately stopped with no real consequence on quality of life. Resource consumption proportions don't even get into how inefficient capitalism is either as a production and distribution system. Why make 1000s of different copies of a product all at varying quality levels that are all designed to be thrown out in 1-15 years when a few dozen variants or less could be made to last as long as possible sometimes even beyond the lifespan of a single generation? If we were genuinely trying our best as a species we could support the current population with magnitudes less ecological impact. I'm not a seasoned ecologist so I don't know the exact statistics. But efficiency gains would be manifold.

I remember once when discussing overpopulation on reddit a poster went on about rare earths and how there wouldn't be enough for everyone to experience the modern luxuries of our phones and other devices at the current rate of consumption, attributing it to over population. But the truth is the biggest problem with how we're going through rare earths is capitalism. Planned obsolescence is not a rumor or conspiracy theory but an actual practice, our devices are made intentionally to wear out and break in around five years to make us buy more. Most people don't recycle their phones tablets and laptops so those rare earths wind up in the dump. Even when we do recycle our devices they're not made with recycling in mind, so instead of taking out the rare earths to be used in more tech it winds up recycled with the plastic for things like, and I'm not making this up, cat toys. Thanks to capitalism our limited supply of rare earths gets recycled not into more phones for people, but cat toys. But many people would prefer to blame population increase rather than point the finger at the wastes and excesses of capitalism.

[MythOfProgress]

If I have the energy I will write a longer reply, but I'm not the person I once was on this forum and find myself doing that less and less with time. This discussion is good though and I welcome it in a place where my posts don't get downvoted into censorship or outright banned by the moderation team.

eh no worries, just take your time. you've mentioned before(elsewhere, not in this discussion) on the collapse subreddit you got banned- if that's the case im sorry to hear that- sometimes the rules can be pretty strict so i can understand the sentiment- that said getting downvoted is one of the better aspects of going on someplace like reddit- without a doubt if you're caught in a space where people most likely agree on one thing(like an echo chamber of sorts) you run the risk of going against the norm and feeling like shit for being the outsider looking in.

on the other hand, it lets people know your opinion is of the "out-group", which always helps out with learning the other perspective. removing downvotes would probably be similar to removing dislikes on youtube, simply just makes criticism and widespread evaluation of someone's comment/content more difficult in the grand scheme of things(though i don't want to leave out people intentionally disliking things in bad faith- that used to happen on YouTube, i dont doubt it happens on reddit as well).

That said, I just want to make a comparatively short statement on Cuba's oil situation specifically and its relation to our own peak oil crises. My understanding of peak oil is that there is no sudden yield collapse. We don't just suddenly stop pulling oil out of the ground, it's a gradual multi-decade process that takes a good century from the peak to wind down in the same way that it wound up from the beginning of the industrial revolution. Oil extraction doesn't stop, the EROI gradually worsens and yield gradually draws down.

to the contrary, i don't disagree with this statement- as its own separate issue we could weather this out- but as i've said before its the other catastrophes and overtime processes we'd have to start worrying about that could affect us, and accelerate global crop failures along the way.

i've mentioned tipping points but haven't actually gone through the process of listing them out. the first that comes to mind is a BOE(Blue Ocean Event), among the few consequences that would follow from this occurring including but not being limited to: latent heat, melting ice sheets, sea level rise and the jetstream being disrupted- there is the more worrying consequence of the food crisis being more severe as a result of the abrupt global warming.
YouTuber Just Have a Think goes into detail regarding this around the 11:42 time slot.



the second coming to mind being the permafrost melting and releasing methane(which if i recall correctly, doesn't last as long in the atmosphere but is twice as potent as co2), this leads to a positive self-sustaining feedback loop wherein the permafrost releasing carbon leads to more heating which leads to permafrost which leads to releasing more carbon which leads to releasing more heat- this could potentially accelerate climate change and ensure disruption to infrastructures, ecosystems and drinking water sources.

the third, which i've only mentioned once in the same thread i mentioned(actually in the few first replies, which is about a year ago now, time flies)- is the thwaites glacier melting; because it's expected to break off and dissipate in the next few years- there's an estimated increase in 2 feet in sea level rise- to add more context it acts as a buffer to the west Antarctic ice sheet- which means once it's gone in its entirety- there's a chance for the aforementioned ice sheet to melt itself leading to a further 10 feet increase in sea level rise.
there's more, but i'd rather not drag this out too much, so there's a more extensive list of the tipping elements to be shown.

but I don't see any evidence there will be a single year where supply is suddenly drawn down by double digit numbers barring "artificial" disruptions such as humans going to war with each other.

don't wanna stray too far from the main convo, but there is the ukrainian war and the good chance of it turning from conventional to something nuclear, considering NATO is starting to get involved; the war starts to drag on its feet and tilt towards a ukrianian victor- the words that putin said tend to ring out- "if there is no russia, there is no world". whether it's a limited nuclear exchange or full-on nuclear holocaust it'd be fascinating but terrifying all at the same time, with a good portion of folks dying in the former scenario and majority of us dead in the latter. i gotta re-watch threads when i get the chance.

As for the rueters article, likely propaganda.

All very uneventful pictures that have words to accompany them from a source I know is untrustworthy on the topic which means the words could be complete lies or highly biased partial truths.

hmm fair enough, intitally i didn't factor in the sanctions committed against Cuba that occurred, alongside the bias media would have against a country that opposed them ideologically(at least for the west)-i'll try to take that into account in future discussions.

[MythOfProgress]

I think capitalism is a far more certain, real, and pressing existential threat than over population, and that much of what people really attribute to population is really caused by capitalism, such as deforestation, over fishing, continuing fossil fuel use, and others.

like i've mentioned before in my second reply to erowind, you're not necessarily wrong of it being a problem in our society- but it's not the main one(just treating the symptom, not the disease)- moreso acting as an accelerant as opposed to a catalyst- we've been exploiting the environment long before this socioeconomic system came in- even if it didn't arise as the ultimate culmination of our activities we'd just collapse at a later date.

a lot of the times some folks tend to make it seem as if its the final boss of the systemic issues in our society that we face- not understanding its only an evolution of what we've been doing all along. do i think we could place more emphasis on circular economies? sure. do i think the process of privatization of essential services in our society is a problem? sure. do i think making our electronics with longer-lasting materials and durability in mind are a better option than throwing it away every few years? sure.

this does not detract away from the fact that overpopulation and over-consumption are not mutually exclusive from each other, and can in fact reinforce one another and coalesce from a problem that could be solved with enough political will and better consumer practices to a predicament that has a few outcomes ranging from the deaths in the billions to possible biosphere collapse. efficiency gains be damned.

But many people would prefer to blame population increase rather than point the finger at the wastes and excesses of capitalism.

many? lol exactly how many of us do you think there are? maybe in a few ecologically aware places but outside of those you'll find most people are still stuck in the initial three stages of grief(denial, anger, bargaining of some type) when it comes to the crisis we have on our hands.

[Vakanai]

I think capitalism is a far more certain, real, and pressing existential threat than over population, and that much of what people really attribute to population is really caused by capitalism, such as deforestation, over fishing, continuing fossil fuel use, and others.

like i've mentioned before in my second reply to erowind, you're not necessarily wrong of it being a problem in our society- but it's not the main one(just treating the symptom, not the disease)- moreso acting as an accelerant as opposed to a catalyst- we've been exploiting the environment long before this socioeconomic system came in- even if it didn't arise as the ultimate culmination of our activities we'd just collapse at a later date.

a lot of the times some folks tend to make it seem as if its the final boss of the systemic issues in our society that we face- not understanding its only an evolution of what we've been doing all along. do i think we could place more emphasis on circular economies? sure. do i think the process of privatization of essential services in our society is a problem? sure. do i think making our electronics with longer-lasting materials and durability in mind are a better option than throwing it away every few years? sure.

this does not detract away from the fact that overpopulation and over-consumption are not mutually exclusive from each other, and can in fact reinforce one another and coalesce from a problem that could be solved with enough political will and better consumer practices to a predicament that has a few outcomes ranging from the deaths in the billions to possible biosphere collapse. efficiency gains be damned.

But many people would prefer to blame population increase rather than point the finger at the wastes and excesses of capitalism.

many? lol exactly how many of us do you think there are? maybe in a few ecologically aware places but outside of those you'll find most people are still stuck in the initial three stages of grief(denial, anger, bargaining of some type) when it comes to the crisis we have on our hands.

As I've said before, this is not an argument/debate which I wish to go into again, as I've learned in previous instances that those who go into the over population theory go ALL in and can't be convinced otherwise and I just don't have the energy to participate in an endless debate where the other side can not be convinced. So all I'll say is I've never seen an argument or problem brought up in regards to over population that I can't either entirely place the blame for solely on capitalism, or find a solution for if the will to change or enact it were only there. I've never once been provided evidence by those decrying over population that I can't apply one of those two to.

I do agree with you that we are more than likely heading towards a societal collapse as I do not see the will to actually address our issues in time, and that history books may erroneously place the blame on over population as we're unlikely to take the real and needed lessons from it that we should (assuming enough of humanity survives the collapse for there to be history books in the future). I just disagree with you as to the cause. It will not be our numbers that condemn us, but our greed.

And there is, quite unfortunately, more on your side than you think, many more. But not everyone who disagrees with your view are in one of the stages of grief. I'm not in denial, I just see the problem much differently than you.

[caltrek]

A recent article in Axios is of relevance to this discussion:

https://www.axios.com/2023/05/23/climat ... erous-heat

The big take away is that global conditions may be experienced differently between different regions. Some areas of the globe may already be in a state of collapse, or very near such a state of collapse. Other areas may be more resilient. The article points out some reasons for this as regards to the effects of climate change.

Also of importance are socio-economic factors. Wealthier nations may have more resilience.

Another factor is quality of political leadership. Those countries that best recognize the dangers may be best prepared. That may include efforts to restrict their own population growth as well as construction of infrastructure projects that anticipate the effects of global climate change. It may also include policies to shift to renewables. Maybe it is too late for such efforts to matter, maybe not.

[MythOfProgress]

as I've learned in previous instances that those who go into the over population theory go ALL in and can't be convinced otherwise and I just don't have the energy to participate in an endless debate where the other side can not be convinced.

don't have a personal/emotional stake so much as i've actually read the book behind the idea by william catton. while i dont expect you to for the sake of brevity or having better things to do- i'd probably be taking a better read towards the subject matter as he explains the concepts behind it- not being so much of a theoretical framework that we're working with so much as it is a die-off event in real-time that we'll witness considering we haven't taken any steps towards rectifying it.

I do agree with you that we are more than likely heading towards a societal collapse as I do not see the will to actually address our issues in time, and that history books may erroneously place the blame on over population as we're unlikely to take the real and needed lessons from it that we should (assuming enough of humanity survives the collapse for there to be history books in the future). I just disagree with you as to the cause. It will not be our numbers that condemn us, but our greed.

that's nice, but i'm not talking about the end-result of collapse (i've mentioned it plenty of times before, and ill keep mentioning it till it starts to bleed into everyone's head)- as tragic as it is- the process matters more; in the hypothetical event that some form of advanced life similar to humans arises even after the biosphere(extremely unlikely if not impossible)- knowing which steps to take to avoid falling into the same trap of collapse is a necessity.

we can keep talking about the socioeconomic systems we live in and how they're to blame for our collapse- everything we've done up until this point has only just been an evolution of we've been doing all along- extracting resources we're still the ones who manifested it into being- and as it is- this requires impossible levels of introspection on the part of everyone else in terms of recognizing our predicament and changing our patterns from exponential growth to degrowth. we've got the appearance of having normal population levels, and yet if you take a brief look as to the amount of animals we've supplanted and dominated for our use, you'd start to recognize the erroneous statements folks have made about this- the carrying capacity when it comes to earth and humans was originally 1 billion- leaving aside the industrial agriculture that arised upon our discovery of fossil fuels.

And there is, quite unfortunately, more on your side than you think, many more. But not everyone who disagrees with your view are in one of the stages of grief. I'm not in denial, I just see the problem much differently than you.

as opposed to you and i making assertions that we claim to be self-evident- i think it'd be best if we came in with some type of evidence or referential data- case in point; the amount of people aware of climate change and its various consquences in the first place, as well as the general level of concern amongst those folks. extrapolate that to the amount of people aware of secondary environmental catastrophes, including overpopulation(at least from the general public's perspective, overpopulation comes second, third or fourth considering climate change gets most of the runtime on mainstream media in environmental publications).

leaving aside the religious folks(like Evangelical Christians or Mormons) that talk about being "fruitful and multiplying", the eco-fascists who will inevitably take advantage and use draconian policies to turn away refugees and kill off "undesirables" and the "just the distribution issue" crowd, i would like to at least get some type of quantification or the statistics on the amount of people that understand and "believe" overpopulation to be an actual issue, cause as it is you've got more people ignorant of what overshoot entails(not just referring to MAGA and neoliberal folks).