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Freedom of Speech?


Jeff Matthews

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20 hours ago, oldtimer said:

It doesn't exist because of stupidity either.

 

Just because I said "The moon landing was a fictional work!", I am being stupid?

 

I see your logic.

 

Dictionary

stu·pid
adjective
1. 
having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.
synonyms: unintelligent, ignorant, dense, brainless, mindless, foolish, dull-witted, dull, slow-witted, witless, slow, simpleminded, empty-headed, vacuous, vapid, halfwitted, idiotic, moronic, imbecile, obtuse, doltish...
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On 8/2/2019 at 10:12 AM, oldtimer said:

That's one way look at it.  Like the old dutch windmills, I think the modern ones look pretty cool.

 

There are lots of them in Illinois and Indiana. Where there is flat land, the wind usually blows...

 

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On 8/2/2019 at 6:57 AM, CECAA850 said:

I've seen the windmills on journeys to west TX.  They certainly change the landscape.  A few weeks ago we drove from TX to vacation in FL.  On the way I saw my first solar "farm".  It was surreal.

 

Four years ago, I was visiting family in rural Ontario and saw my first solar farm.  My first thought was "Wow!  Here's the future!  Clean energy for all!"

 

A few days later, I read a reader comment in the Letters To The Editor section of the local paper (local to central rural Ontario, that is), grumbling about how the solar farms were so unsightly.  It was a long comment, and she might have even called them a blight on the landscape, or words to that effect.  Who knows how many others feel that way, that the means of generating power should always be invisible to most people?  I saw only one solar farm during my visit, and it didn't bother me at all.

 

Last year, when researching this topic, I was surprised to learn that hydro power costs the most human lives of any form of power generation, directly at least.  This is mostly due to dam failures and related incidents, including the slide of a mountainside into a large hydro reservoir in Italy that caused a huge wave, pretty much wiping out the small town on the far side of the reservoir.

 

All energy production methods cause loss of life, human mostly, but animals die as well.  As other members have posted, the main problem is too many people on the Earth.  One statistic that stays at the tip of my tongue is that between 1950 and 2015, the human population tripled, from 2.5 billion to 7.5 billion.  In just one lifetime, the number of people on Earth tripled!  This clearly won't go on, but the corrections that will take place, by starvation and many other means, will not be pleasant, like the Black Plague that reduced the population of Europe by about 30% back in the early centuries of the last millennium.

 

Things were not great in 1950, but when you take into account the 5 billion "extra" people that have been added to the population, each with his or her needs for food, clothing, housing, transport, entertainment, and so on and so on, it seems obvious that there must inevitably be some changes to society, and to everything we see, making 1950 seem wonderful.  There  will be 9 billion people on Earth during our younger children's lifetimes, and it won't be pleasant.  The sooner this is acknowledged, the better.

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59 minutes ago, Islander said:

here  will be 9 billion people on Earth during our younger children's lifetimes, and it won't be pleasant.  The sooner this is acknowledged, the better.

 

Acknowledge what? It is a political, social and scientific problem.

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5 hours ago, Marvel said:

 

Acknowledge what? It is a political, social and scientific problem.

 

You're right, but not according to some people, even some people in power.  They seem to believe in some sort of "steady-state" situation, where things are as they've always been, except perhaps for the last few decades, and will continue as they always have, as long as no-one is stupid enough to rock the boat and upset the natural order.

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29 minutes ago, Marvel said:

I think we have the ability to grow enough food to feed everyone, even without the help of Monsanto. 😬

 

 

I disagree.  About 30 or 40 years ago, famines were more common, then came the Green Revolution, with improved growing methods and chemistry, so food production was greatly increased.  It backfired.  At first, there were fewer famines, then people started having more children, and within twenty years, Africa was back where it had started, with people going hungry again.  India and China are more organized, but even so, those countries are so crowded that famine is only a few failed crop-years away.  Already, some Indian cities have started running out of clean drinking (and cooking and bathing) water.

 

Poverty is the issue.  For poor people, children are an asset, able to help on the farm or otherwise bring money into the family.  For rich people (and I include most middle-income people in the developed world in that group), children are an expense, so it makes more sense to have three or fewer, instead of six or eight.  Therefore, the solution is to make more people (relatively) rich.  That will cause a definite reduction in population growth, as it has done in Europe, North America, and other developed countries, most noticeably Japan, whose population has actually started to shrink.

 

We've had one Green Revolution, which greatly increased food production.  I don't see another one happening in the near future.  Earth's capacity to produce food is not unlimited.  As the global climate becomes less hospitable to humans (and most other creatures), our ability to produce food will be lessened, not increased.  Nine billion humans is the most frequently quoted number for maximum human population, but whether it's 9 gig of humans or 10, it doesn't make much difference, because if it's the upper number, we'll hit 10 gig soon enough.

 

We may or may not live long enough to see what peak population looks like, but our children almost certainly will, and for our grandkids, it's guaranteed.  Those ones will see how bad it can get.

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On 8/5/2019 at 4:57 PM, JJkizak said:

MIT is working on the food problem and already has many issues resolved on growing food indoors at 2 to 5 times the yield.

JJK

 

Maize doesn't grow well in my bedroom, but that's possibly because I can't afford an artificial sun and Nestle water isn't cheap...

 

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