patrick.net

The real answer to all these terrible problems we face, like overpopulation, environmental decay, global warming, big scary asteroids, is to continue to develop our social, technical and scientific systems to overcome them. I could take your same arguments and roll them back to the middle ages and say that agriculture and dynasties caused non sustainability via cities and caused plagues. I’m partial to antibiotics and science solving plagues rather than killing off half the serfs and returning everyone to berry picking.

Ok, I missed the bulk of weekend debate here over neo-Luddism and HG-v.-post-Industrialism, but a couple of quick points:

Is it not possible to be concerned about sustainability of the earth's human population (and accelerating population growth, esp. among the poorest, least stable, least equipped nations) and other global-scale problems (Peak Oil, topsoil loss/degradation, etc.) and *not* be a technology-hating, Shamanic-yak-horn loving Neo-Luddite?

My own concerns about overpopulation and population growth expanding beyond technology's limits to compensate does not arise from a fear and/or hatred of technology and the relative comforts of modern society. Rather, it's just the opposite: I am gravely concerned that rising world population (esp. among the Third World) is going to suck more and more of our resources into future conflicts over declining limited natural resources (oil, food, fresh water, etc.) to the extent my own standard of living will greatly suffer.

I don't "hate" progress or want to deny its benefits to my family, my countrymen or anyone else in the world. Quite the contrary, I would love to see the rest of the world's standard of living rise to the level of First World industrial societies. However, I don't see this occurring in countries that already have relatively high population-to-natural resource ratios, and extremely high birthrates. How much of any nation's limited resources can be devoted to building out infrastructure, or public education, or R&D on high technology when a large % of the population is close to starvation and more hungry mouths to feed are being added every day?

Yes, the world's economy is not static, and improvements in agricultural technology do significantly push the envelope of population "sustainability" levels outward. However, let's not forget that the earth is still a basically closed system. Unless/until someone invents relatively inexpensive and scalable warp drive technology, this is the only large-scale habitable world we have. Malthus's basic observation that unchecked human populations tend to increase geometrically, while the food supply increases arithmetically is still valid, despite historic anomalies like the 1960s' "Green Revolution" (which BTW was only possible via massive increase in use of oil-fueled mechanisation, petrochemical fertilizers, insecticides, etc.).

I want a future world of sustainable prosperity, opportunity, good health, and a clean, healthy environment that everyone can enjoy for many generations to come. I just don't see how we get there from here without recognizing that there *are* some natural limits to human population growth. Whether or not we choose to impose some reasonable limits upon ourselves (contraception, limited family size), or do nothing and have the environment impose limits upon us forcibly (famine, war, plague, etc.) remains to be seen.

HARM

No quibbles.

We'll try to do (a), but it will be (b) that balances the accounts. It's just the way of things, though we do incrementally improve every cycle.

I view it as a constraints-problem. Even if you dialed up all productivity and efficiency by 100x, we'd still be at carrying capacity because we'd just consume and reproduce right up to that level.

It is the nature of our construct. It is the terrible trade-off we've made with iterative natural selection in order to survive as a species. Of course we should *try* to make things better. But we should also be fully self-aware of who we are as a species.

I dare say that, should we ever encounter another sentient, technology using species (highly debatable, I know, but most agree at least possible), they will inevitably also be evolved socially and physically from a terrible, violent, stressful history. Because that's what pushes progress forward. If you live in Eden and everyone is at peace, why build a rocket ship in the first place?

I dare say that, should we ever encounter another sentient, technology using species (highly debatable, I know, but most agree at least possible), they will inevitably also be evolved socially and physically from a terrible, violent, stressful history. Because that’s what pushes progress forward. If you live in Eden and everyone is at peace, why build a rocket ship in the first place?

No doubt violent conflict over scarcity is a key part of what got us here ("here" being technologically advanced society relative to 99.9% of previous human history), but I don't believe that's *all* that got us here. I think a strong natural curiosity and desire to learn how the universe works is at least as critical an ingredient. Any society that has the former but lacks the latter is doomed to an endless cycle of bloody conflict with little forward progress, IMHO.

Witness the direct involvement and philanthropy by billionaires who have already achieved their own personal "Edens" here on earth to expand the frontiers of science and improve the lot of the less fortunate (Branson's X-Prize, Gates Foundation, etc.). Is this just another example of "bigger yacht" one-upsmanship by way of public philanthropy, or are there other motives at work here? I can't read the minds of Bill Gates or Richard Branson, but something tells me that basic human curiosity and the drive to improve the species has *something* to with it, even if that's only a secondary motive.

Even if 100% of the human race were 'fat and happy' by contemporary standards, I'm convinced we would still seek to 'improve' ourselves and explore the universe.

When we're all "fat and happy," no doubt we will induce artificial debilities to make our lives more interesting.

While we wait for the DQ Chronicle charts to come out (which have the $/sq.ft. numbers for "fortress" unbelievers), here are some DQ stats for select California cities.
In the East Bay, BAP is still prime!
Berkeley median is up 16.44%.
Albany median is up 26.55% (on a small number of sales).

In the land of pocket listings, Mill Valley is up 7.76%.

In SiliValley, well, this one kinda jumps out at ya:
Crapertino median down -19.55%. Did they sell a bunch of condos (or what) this past month? Cracks in the fortress?

EBGuy,

In the East Bay, BAP is still prime!

Didn't you mean: "BAP33 is still prime"?

Randy H Says:

So to distill DS’ arguments to a readable form:

* If one survived the gantlet of things from disease to predation to malnutrition to starvation to infanticide to abandonment to intertribal conflict that might kill them from birth to around 14 years of age, one would have lived longer than Methuselah in a hunting-gathering-we’re-all-equals paradise. More kids live through childhood today, but for what? A pathetic life of enlightened education, unparalleled learning and communication, and free time to sit around and blog about how much nicer it might have been to be a brave 70 year old aboriginal tribesman.

No, I'm not claiming any of that at all, so they must all be straw men arguments. It must be a distillation of something else.

I just said 'gosh, it was interesting about the property relations in these extant HG societies that we have discovered in recent times'. Everything else has been extrapolated, confabulated and constructed by posters with various axes to grind, so they will have to deal with their own peculiar demons in reconciling those views with what was posted, I guess. In psychology, we call habits like that 'heuristics', or, in extreme cases, it's called the psychopathology of 'splitting', the habit of leaping to extremes of judgement as a way of short-circuiting decision-making, putting words in people's mouths that were never intended, etc. In other words, creating mental black and white pictures out of shades of grey ideas, much as the human eye alters contrast beyond reality to respond to sudden light transitions, etc.

There are plenty of Aboriginal people living in more or less tribal situations today who reach 60 and so on, but it's hard to tell with European interference how much their lives have altered. But I didn't start a debate on mortality, someone else did, and I don't even know why. However, the original post was to discuss how property relations came about, where, as we've pointed out, people these days can retain more and more, a la Bill Gates Sr's book, and there was a debate about estate taxing, etc.

I've also seen a lot of pretty uninformed stereotyped Hollywood cliches about 'cave men', marauding 16 year olds with spears, etc. In fact, it seems highly unlikely from the record that man inhabited caves much at all, they went into them for ritual purposes, including burials, etc. The other thing, all such societies had methods of social control, just as we do today, that means 16 year olds don't maraud with spears -- there was a role for elders, who were greatly respected and held to possess ritual magic, the wisdom of the tribe, etc. Young men had very few rights and were kept on a pretty tight leash back then, unlike today. Unfortunately, people still believe in a garbled Hobbesian-style view of early societies, which was totally imaginary on Hobbes part, and predates serious anthropological study and assumed that people were atomised and individualised more as they are today and extrapolated backwards...

As for the Schiller Inst life expectancy figures, the fossil record is incredibly bad from the period under discussion, so the figures are probably concocted from a guess.

I would also consider the history of warfare under 'civilisation' also, e.g. the Roman sacking and mass slaughter of Carthage, the Mongols invading central Asia and Europe, WW1 and WW2, the Cold War, etc, etc, in considering just how 'civilised' we have become. The inter-tribal skirmishes of HG tribes pale by comparison, but the sentiment is still the same -- we are basically pretty primitive apes with advanced neocortexes, still being driven by chimp-like urges -- e.g. see Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence.

the fossil record is incredibly bad from the period under discussion, so the figures are probably concocted from a guess.

Translation:

The bones they keep finding are of people too young to support my thesis, therefore the fossil record is unreliable. The dna techniques are too new and don't support my thesis, therefore they are unreliable. This wasn't my point anyway, yet I refuse to cede it to the point of pure lunacy, because some extant aboriginal tribe somewhere has "elders" over age 70.

I'm in some strange Bizzaro World where I'm arguing with the Anti-Creationist, and he's just as bad as that Texan with dinosaur and human prints in the mud in his back yard.

Yes, somewhere another aboriginal tribe known as the Dogon supposedly knew about the dog star Sirius long before it was discovered even though they couldn't have, physically. Oops, guess not. Cultural "contamination" and a wild-eyed neo-luddite wishing to prove the mysterious complexity of ancient mysticism were the cause ... not so mysterious after all.

Of course "primitive" people today have longer lives. There's no mystery in that at all.

Of course “primitive” people today have longer lives.

Perhaps because they eat raw meat (such as fish)? ;)

Just a thought.

Will someone please start a new thread. Looks like some Marinites got loose and ended up in Michigan.

ORGANIC FARMING CAN FEED THE WORLD, U-M study shows
University of Michigan
http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=5936
ANN ARBOR, Mich.
July 10th. — Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries, as low-intensive methods on the same land—according to new findings which refute the long-standing claim that organic farming methods cannot produce enough food to feed the global population.
Researchers from the University of Michigan found that in developed
countries, yields were almost equal on organic and conventional farms. In
developing countries, food production could double or triple using organic
methods, said Ivette Perfecto, professor at U-M's School of Natural Resources and Environment, and one the study's principal investigators. Catherine Badgley, research scientist in the Museum of Paleontology, is a co-author of the paper along with several current and former graduate and undergraduate students from U-M.
"My hope is that we can finally put a nail in the coffin of the idea that you
can’t produce enough food through organic agriculture," Perfecto said.
In addition to equal or greater yields, the authors found that those yields
could be accomplished using existing quantities of organic fertilizers, without putting more farmland into production.

Randy H Says:
the fossil record is incredibly bad from the period under discussion, so the figures are probably concocted from a guess.
Translation:
The bones they keep finding are of people too young to support my thesis, therefore the fossil record is unreliable.

No, because that's what the state of the art experts have concluded, from the article I referenced earlier. Similarly, there are very poor fossilised records from the period 7 MYA to 14 MYA which would answer a lot of questions about human and ape evolution from Proconsul, and so on and so forth, due to poor fossilisation in jungle habitats, so science will never know the answers to some things. Sorry about that...

Of course “primitive” people today have longer lives. There’s no mystery in that at all.

Well, they could have shorter lives, the same, or longer lives, due to new diseases of diabetes, heart disease, alcoholism, smallpox, colds, influenza, measles, mumps, rubella, tuberculosis, HIV, etc, and the problem of incarceration and deaths in custody. Some of them now live on a diet of tinned spaghetti and no longer hunt, catch or forage much for food. However, there's little doubt that extant HG societies discovered in the past 2 centuries engaged in a lot of inter-tribal warfare, often based on grudges, suspicion and beliefs in magical tampering, sometimes over territorial matters, etc. 'Primitive' is another no-no word in expert circles as well. (Technologically) simple societies. Pre-industrial societies. Stateless societies. Nomadic societies. But you'd know that from the Ph.D ;)

just to contrast the Hollywood Flintstones cave man fiction and fantasy of the way homo sapiens (modern man) lived for 200,000 years before the last 10,000 years of history in HG societies (in which dinosaurs apparently did co-exist with cavemen!), this is taken from Marshall Sahlins 'The original affluent society' work, where the early European invasion of Australia found:

It is a mistake, Sir George Grey (7) wrote, to suppose that the native Australians "have small means of subsistence, or are at times greatly pressed for want of food". Many and "almost ludicrous" are the errors travellers have fallen into in this regard: "They lament in their journals that the unfortunate Aborigines should be reduced by famine to the miserable necessity of subsisting on certain sorts of food, which they have found near their huts; whereas, in many instances, the articles thus quoted by them are those which the natives most prize, and are really neither deficient in flavour nor nutritious qualities". To render palpable "the ignorance that has prevailed with regard to the habits and customs of this people when in their wild state", Grey provides one remarkable example, a citation from his fellow explorer, Captain Stuart, who, upon encountering a group of Aboriginals engaged in gathering large quantities of mimosa gum, deduced that the "unfortunate creatures were reduced to the last extremity, and, being unable to procure any other nourishment, had been obliged to collect this mucilaginous". But, Sir George observes, the gum in question is a favourite article of food in the area, and when in season it affords the opportunity for large numbers of people to assemble and camp together, which otherwise they are unable to do. He concludes:

"Generally speaking, the natives live well; in some districts there may be at particular seasons of the year a deficiency of food, but if such is the case, these tracts are, at those times, deserted.

It is, however, utterly impossible for a traveller or even for a strange native to judge whether a district affords an abundance of food, or the contrary... But in his own district a native is very differently situated; he knows exactly what it produces, the proper time at which the several articles are in season, and the readiest means of procuring them. According to these circumstances he regulates his visits to different portions of his hunting ground; and I can only say that l have always found the greatest abundance in their huts."(8)

The Original Affluent Society--Marshall Sahlins

The entire article is worth reading to dispel a few more myths...

Randy H Says:
So to distill DS’ arguments to a readable form:

– This is false, incidentally, by the Schiller data which shows population growths along with infant mortality, and longevity. DS is wrong because populations grew very fast, meaning both decreased infant mortality and increased longevity.

Just on this, you left out increased fertility, apart from the questionable quality of any data obtained from the Schiller Institute. I say that the longevity figures are life expectation at birth, and leave out the average age of survival from say age 15, when the adolescent is robust enough to survive without difficulty. Note that intertribal warfare in HG societies that we have observed such as in PNG and Oz normally only involves males at a safe distance in skirmishes, not the out and out subjugation and kill 'em dead warfare for resources that we're more used to -- it is over suspicions of black magic or territorial incursions normally. Once a few spears have been thrown and someone has capitulated, it is normally over. Slave-taking, subjugation and similar activities are very rare, that seems to have occurred for the first time in agrarian or fixed societies (where tending gardens and fields is actually a lot more work) and ever-expanding empires.

Note that urban infant mortality figures from Georgian and Victorian times are much higher than rural figures at the same time due to urban epidemics around sanitation and overcrowding.

Once again, you've missed the point -- I'm not saying HG societies are 'better' than living in the past 100 years known as modernity (and only the past 100 years) -- however, they have some redeeming qualities that would make them better than many other epochs in history for many people -- and that they value things differently, as per the Sahlins paper produced all those years ago (which is also referenced in the Journal of Population Research article), and perhaps possess certain values which we should look to again regarding lack of concern for material things and perpetual 'wanting'. I certainly hope our only hope is not to colonise or mine other planets, because no other planet in this solar system possesses hydrocarbons for machine lubrication and fuel derived from decaying plants and animals for a start, apart from technical feasibility and timescale questions. Without lubricants and petroleum, our entire mode of running machinery and producing materials such as plastics is dead, think about that at the recreational monster truck rallies, speed boat racing and F1 and drag racing strips (sorry bap).

Seriously, has anyone figured out how to set up a killfile for wordpress? The closest I have is to pick up the RSS for Comments and then set up a filter, but that approach has its own shortcomings.

SP

@astrid,

Well...? It's happening! Sunday's Las Vegas Sun had a great article describing exactly what you predicted! My "party all the time, neighbor from hell" scenario is playing out with frightening accuracy! (Ben Jones also posted the article)

Seems "San Niccolo" (a GATED community) in LV is becoming a nightmare already. The "gate" is crashed with regularity as "young renters" partying friends nudge the gate with their cars to gain entry on the weekends. One poor gal was chased back into her 2,600 s/f rental (for $1,350 a month) by her neighbor's PIT BULL! She now keeps 2 cans of pepper spray at the door and has ordered a Glock (for it's "stopping power").

This (formerly) upscale, gated and 600k+ community is now described as having a "frat house atmosphere"! I'm just miffed someone beat me to it!

SP

Older versions of FeedDemon used to have nice RSS-based filtering. The newer versions took it out, for some reason. This blog isn't very nice via RSS though.

You could always just skip my comments ;0

Crank one out yourself and I'll promote the hell out of it for you.

DinOR,

Ha ha!

(Is there a German or Welsh word for taking joy in having one's prediction of other people's misfortune come true :)

I can't believe that neither Wordpress nor Mozilla extension exist for filtering out comments...

@astrid,

Maybe you are just a schadenfreudian (decide whether to capitalize or italicize depending upon your own syntactic preference).

Randy H Says:
Older versions of FeedDemon used to have nice RSS-based filtering. The newer versions took it out, for some reason. This blog isn’t very nice via RSS though.

I have a few RSS aggregators that I use, but although they allow decent blacklist and whitelist filtering, they are only good for reading, not for participating in a discussion. Sharpreader does decent filterspec, but it is tied to the .net framework so I can't use it on my linux machines.

You could always just skip my comments ;0

Yeah, but automating it would be so much nicer. :-) But seriously, I am not looking for filtering out by author, but by keywords.

Crank one out yourself and I’ll promote the hell out of it for you.

Or we could just evolve into higher beings and start using Usenet.

SP

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC.N) Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo said the U.S. housing market is unlikely to recover before 2009, as lenders and homeowners work through oversupply, stagnating home prices, and the excesses of recent lax lending standards in much of the mortgage industry.

He he he...

SP

I miss Usenet. I used to participate quite a bit in rec.poetry, but then again back then I had youthful ideals and a lot more hormones.

Actually, has anyone tried to revive Usenet by facading it with blog-like interfaces? I have to think through why, but it sounds like there might be something there.

Randy H Says:
Actually, has anyone tried to revive Usenet by facading it with blog-like interfaces? I have to think through why, but it sounds like there might be something there.

Of course. Google groups covers that. G bought out Dejanews' content and rolled it into http://groups.google.com/

In many ways, Usenet as a discussion platform was further evolved than most blogs are today.

SP

I'm visiting CA as I write. Why don't you tax the crap out of cigs? I can't believe they are only $3.50 a pack. I thought CA was so into health and whatever! Back in Chicago $7.00 is a deal and the state is about to increase the tax by another 75 cents. Imagine what the state could do for health care and high speed rail with the extra $3.50 to $4.00 a pack! WOW!!!

Here's a link-

http://tinyurl.com/2ger3s

Yeah, but the CEO of Countrywide is going to make a mint, no matter how well or poorly the company does:

http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSN2543727420070725

Even if Countrywide Financial Corp.'s profit falls sharply in 2007, Chairman Angelo Mozilo still could pocket a maximum incentive of $10 million, thanks to a change in his employment contract that does not require earnings growth.

Mozilo, the son of a butcher who built Countrywide into the largest U.S. mortgage lender, is used to receiving handsome compensation. Over the past five years, Mozilo has received $387 million from pay and stock option gains.

Missing from this discussion, and admittedly I didn't peruse every word in 249 previous comments, is corporate avoidance of taxes.
Large corporation's share of the tax burden has fallen from 35% in the 1940's to something around 10% today. Multinational corps. largely run the government and write the laws ( see the credit card bill of a few years ago, the current farm bill, the operation of our intelligence gathering) and they increasingly operate without any restrictions whatsoever.

As to all the "welfare queen" bashers: I hope there is no karmic coming back in another life to enlighten you as to what it is to be poor in America.

You're all wrong! Just kidding, however there is a solution that I didn't see posted above, the Henry George "single tax". Take a look at www.henrygeorge.org but don't reject the idea until you are sure you really understand it. It takes a little study since it flies in the face of common preconceptions and it is very easy to think you get it when you don't. Just keep in mind the principle - don't tax that which you want more of!

By the by, the FairTax is, IMHO, only very slightly better than the current mess. It is far from a good solution.