They lost dream job status for me when I realized I was facilitating some evil shit. Like "oh! great job in genomics! I can help cure cancer!" Then realize it's "oh, help China build population scale genomic sequencing, wonder what they're gonna do with that?"
And "oh, edge computing, sounds cool", then realizing "oh, edge computing is mostly useful for facial recognition, wonder what people will use that for?"
These are great ideas and should be implemented, but at best the push the issue of population down the road. These are temporary band-aids to a worsening problem.
A species that grows beyond it's bounds and kills itself is not intelligent, it's merely a clever tool user. Let's prove our real intelligence by being the first species on our planet conscious of the physical bounds, with understanding we have the capacity to to go beyond them to our own demise, and wisdom to actively choose sustainability. Let's be smarter than bacteria on a Petri dish.
The goal of our species shouldn't be to fit as many humans as possible on the planet and make everyone sacrifice for it.
But I want to clarify, I'm not in favor of authoritarian limits on reproduction (I'm an anarchist). I suspect, looking at the timing of the human population explosion on the scale of thousands of years, that exploitative economic systems and the ability to cheat the natural energy balance by using prehistoric sunlight energy (fossil fuels) are the drivers of this explosion and if we can eliminate or control those things the population would naturally contract.
I'm planning on making some panels to help cool my garden in an attempt to help plants survive extreme heat and sun by shooting some of that heat into space! The combination of partial shading with cooling mass vs heating mass should help a bit. People think it doesn't work, but I'd imagine growing a garden on a asphalt blacktop vs white cement would make a few degrees difference. This technology does the same thing, it just pushes the boundaries further to cool below atmospheric temperature.
You're the first person I've seen bring this up, not sure why it's not more popular, just new I guess. Also, usually when I bring it up people say it's' bad because it will encourage more fossil fuel growth and they totally miss the point.
Anyone who willingly wears a badge or military uniform would kill their mother given the order. These symbols are identification showing us exactly who is preventing societal progress.
Speaking about Christianity -- but it's not an unforgivable sin. If one believes in what is common in Christian sects and is having a difficult lonely life without support, it definitely makes sense to commit suicide. God being angry, but then forgiving you and allowing you to live in heaven sounds better than a life of despair to me.
It's my opinion that most people that call themselves religious don't actually believe. The true believers are the ones doing suicide bombings and fighting unwinnable wars.
Every time we’ve run into issues, we’ve innovated our way out of it.
Is that right?
We're currently wiping out the Amazon, causing the 6th great extinction, unsustainably using fossil fuels. Billions of people are dependent on very complex supply chains that require massive polluting and ocean life harming ships to get them to you. You can't even talk about your favorite camping spot without it getting overrun and damaging the ecosystem. Many people can't afford to see their favorite artists because with a massive population and popular artists that supply and demand is way out of whack. Same with Disneyland etc. We don't have enough housing, and if we build more we're going to wipe out even more ecosystems and use even more resources.
Las Vegas? Those solar panels and air conditioners are produced using fossil fuels. Also, the desert is not wasteland, just because desert species may not be your favorite doesn't mean it's ok to wipe them out to build more housing tracts.
There are so many aspects of overpopulation, producing enough food, water, and housing are just the tiny tip of the iceberg. These things I brought up are what came to my mind in 2 minutes before I had my coffee.
By saying technology is the way past our problems is to set up a race condition between technological advancements that are not guaranteed (and most likely to exacerbate the rich vs poor gap) and civilization ending destruction that is.
I’m sure people will hate me for saying this, but we should be phasing out unsustainable cities like Las Vegas, not giving them incentives to build up even more.
I live in Vegas (an am partly excited about the train because, well it's a train and it will make it easier to visit family) and fully agree. This place is uninhabitable for 3 months out of the year without technological assistance (air conditioning). But I think this applies to many places both too hot and too cold. Even Southern California has no water without massive exploitation of the Colorado River. Our population is simply too much for the planet.
I kinda like this idea