All species are related to other species in some way. If a species becomes extinct it will impact on other species. There are various iconic species such as the koala and the giant panda. The first is a symbol of Australia and the second is the logo of the world wildlife fund. Yet the consequences to other species if either of these species would become extinct is not very great. The eucalypts and bamboos on which the koalas and the giant pandas dine would still exist. Probably the only other species that would die out with the disappearance of the koalas and the giant pandas would be the parasites which have evolved to be specific to the koalas and the giant pandas.

We may swat at mosquitoes and wish them all away, but their disappearance would be catastrophic. Many species of songbirds which depend on the mosquitoes for their diet, many species of fish whose fry subsist mainly on mosquito larvae and many species of lizards and other small reptiles would all disappear if there were no more mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are immensely more important to the web of life than the koalas and the giant pandas.

Of course preservation of the koalas and the giant pandas has desirable side effects. To preserve them in the wild requires preserving their habitat, and many other species require that habitat to live. However, we can still question how valuable they are to the web of life.

In the history of life as shown by the fossil record there have been five great extinctions.

At this time the most destructive species is Homo Sapiens. We destroy habitat. We pollute land, sea and air. Our extinction would result in the end of the present sixth great extinction as the habitat of other competing species would stop disappearing. Gradually the toxic chemicals we have put in the biosphere would disintegrate. Our cities would gradually disappear under greenery, and Eden would be restored with no Adam and Eve bringing death.

David F, what a positively depressing post!

Are you saying this world would be better off without us humans?

Wouldn't the predators that are at the top of the food chains in some countries become so prolific that many, many other species would be wiped out as well as the humans?

A sad thought.

I hope us humans can learn to live in this world more wisely, or maybe your predictions just may come true.

There is a great temptation to embrace fatalist ideas, and then promote them as a rational and logical sequence of events. There is always some catastrophe about to wipe the planet out, and usually accompanied by a solution which wont cost too much...
You and me dont matter in the slightest, in the big picture of things. None of us do.
We are overdue to be extinct, as a species, but human brain development has prevented this from happening. There will be extinction events in the future, as there has been in the past, usually related to meteorites and stuff like that.
The end is remotely possibly nigh, but at this stage there is no need for concern.

Dear Suzeonline,

Predators do not become too prolific as a shortage of prey rapidly curtails their numbers.

A long time ago I worked on early ecological studies. If we take a simple ecological system of rabbits, foxes and grass the population of rabbits will approximate a sine curve increasing and decreasing. The poulation of foxes will also approximate a sine curve following the sine curve of the rabbits. This was a computer model, but data from the field confirmed that it worked that way.

Yes, I am saying the world would be better off without us.

Depressing? I think it's a big laugh.

Any species will eventually become extinct. Most other species will flourish with our extinction. Some like the crows for whom we provide road kill and rats for whom we provide heaps of grain will also decline with our demise.

Dear davidf,

I believe I may have ribbed you on an earlier thread about your views on this sounding very much like a Genesis God and this time you offer the statement “Eden would be restored with no Adam and Eve bringing death”.

I doubt however that the lion will ever lay again with the lamb and that the concept of what it takes for something to be an 'Eden' is surely a human one an without us it must cease to exist.

Your final comment though does bring to mind A.D.Hope's Imperial Adam.

http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/poetry/poems/imperialAdam.html

“And the first murderer lay upon the earth.”

But if yours is a call to mend our ways then you get no argument from me. I have spent the last three weeks doing a number of newspaper and radio interviews, visiting a series of politicians and candidates, all to turn around some of the disasters we have inherited from past practices.

And although I am developing a callous on my forehead if I didn't think we were improving as a species I wouldn't bother.

You know, my lady scoffed at me & told me I was becomming paranoid just the other day, when I suggested that some twit would want to make spraying mozzies & flies illegal, in the next 20 years or so.

I was way off with the timing, but right about the twit.

Mate, not the whole species, but the earth just may be improved with the elimination of a few individual humans.

What a strange thread

It is initiated yet asks no questions, makes precious little comment about any human contribution and seems to placidly suggest culling humans would be the best thing.

So to follow up on that theme-

I suggest we kill off all the pessimists or at least sterilise them to stop them from breeding.

Think what a wonderful place the world would be if we had a population made up wholly of optimists.

No doomsayers

No global warming side-shows

No nanny state, because optimists have no tears which need a nanny to wipe away.

Ah it already sounds pretty wonderful to me...

Dear David F.,

Thanks for this thread.

I guess to some observers, the disappearance
of other species as a result of human activity
is a matter of no particular consequence.
To others, it represents the height of human
hubris, in that we're making ourselves the
ultimate arbiters of which species may survive
and which may be obliterated.

But there are practical reasons why human society
should protect other life forms.

Tropical forests are a stabilizing factor in the
global climate, they absorb vast amounts of
atmospheric carbon dioxide. Many plants are
medically valuable: most anticancer compounds, for
example, come from plants of the rain forest,
and this pharmaceutical cornucopia is still mostly
untappped. Wild species are a "storehouse" for
agricultural scientists who interbreed them with
domestic species in order to create more fruitful
or resistant strains. The rain forest itself is a
vast and irreplaceable "library" from which genetic
engineers of the future may draw their raw material.

Many species among the millions of uncataloged plants
will surely prove to be edible, and could become
major crops in the future. And the trees and flowers,
the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air,
are an aesthetic treasure, capable of delighting
our senses and giving us some vision of what we are so
carelessly destroying.

Of course there's another argument for protecting other
life forms. It has nothing to do with any social benefits
for ourselves.

The breathtaking diversity of species has evolved in
delicate and precarious balance over many millions of years.
Most of the plants and animals with which we share the
earth have been here a great deal longer than we have.
For a fleeting moment in planetary history, our technology
has given us domain over them.

In awe, respect, and humility, we might just let them be.

There is of course one technology, however, that
threatens not only other species with extinction, but
humanity as well. That is the technology of
nuclear warfare.

Dear Foxy,

I can rely on you!

Dear hasbeen,

Who would you suggest eliminating?

Dear Stern,

A population solely made up of optimists would hasten our extinction. We might survive longer if we recognise reality.

Dear csteele,

Thank you for the poem. I enjoyed it. I could wallow in my guilt. Murder is an act that one commits knowing that it will result in the death of another human being or beings. Having willingly taken part in the conception of several human beings I am guilty.

Perhaps we need to follow the precepts of Zoroastrianism. Sex for reproduction is sinful as it creates more areas where evil can reside unlike purely recreational sex which one can enjoy without guilt.

What evidence do you have that we are improving as a species? One of the strangest beliefs in progress was expressed by Thomas Babington Macaulay:

"The history of England is emphatically the history of progress."

Let's be realistic here.

It is not "pessimism" to point out that, in the cosmic scheme of things, we are just another species that appears, flourishes for a while, then dies out.

The problem here is the classic "what are we doing here" challenge. Which doesn't have an answer, of course, but which we ask anyway.

For a while, nobody had time to think, so simply concentrated on survival. That didn't need much thought, except to devise ways to fend off the sabre-toothed tigers and whatnot.

But as life settled down, we became "civilized", and had more time to think - so, along come the thinkers.

Socrates put it thus: "the truly wise man will know what is right, do what is good, and therefore be happy".

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, religions started to tell us that it was wrong to be happy; we should feel guilty instead. And that we should leave it to priests to tell us what is good, and what is evil.

Mankind then embarked upon centuries of warfare, whose intent was to determine which religion was "right", and therefore which set of priests you should listen to, in order to do "good".

Meanwhile, mankind became adept at subverting the environment to its will, eating the animals, tilling the soil, inventing machinery powered by hydrocarbons, digging up minerals, killing animals for sport etc etc - all with the objective of being "happy".

Socrates' simple, sequential philosophy was by-passed, as people became increasingly clever, but increasingly less wise. The current ideal, that we maximize monetary wealth - to the point where we idolize people who make lots of it - is almost at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from wisdom.

There is no point in going out of our way to cull the population of its pessimists. Nor optimists, nor rich people, nor the poor, nor those who think differently from us.

Just try to enjoy the brief time we have here, it's a massive, unbelievable privilege.

"The truly wise man will know what is right, do what is good, and therefore be happy"

All humans are dreadful noxious pests who should be eliminated - for a better world.

And I'm not pious or anything.

Dear Pericles,

Humans thought in religious ways while they were fighting off sabre-toothed tigers.

In Skhul and Qafzeh graves at Mount Carmel in in Israel archaeologists have found the remains of people from about 100,000 years ago. This was way before such developments as agriculture and domestication of animals. The remains had been buried with possessions such as stone tools. This indicates a possible belief in an afterlife where such objects would be needed.

The earliest archaeological evidence for warfare also comes from the middle east where some people had discovered how to ferment grain for making booze, and another group wanted booze.

I. F. Stone wrote “The Trial of Socrates” which indicates Socrates favoured the authoritarian society of Sparta over democratic Athens . Since Socrates left no writing behind him we have to piece his thoughts and actions together from what other people wrote of him. Stone consulted four sources – Plato, Xenophon, Aristophanes and Aristotle.

His book casts a very different light on Socrates from the usual one. He points out instances in Plato’s writing where Socrates was for censoring writings such as Achilles condemnation of Agamemnon in the Iliad as it might encourage disrespect for authority. From p. 129:

“Plato, writing ‘The Apology’ years after the trial – was protecting himself as well as Socrates when he made no mention of the “Birds” (Aristophanes’ play which accused Socrates of pro-Spartan sentiments). The foremost example of a “Socratified” malcontent was Plato himself. In the fourth century B. C. He carried on the same intellectual assault against Athenian freedom and democracy that his master had launched in the fifth."

One reason for the reverence of Socrates and Plato in our society is that they were in the core curriculum of the classics taught in Oxford and Cambridge. However, the student there were being taught to rule an empire. For that purpose Plato and Socratics were admirable guides.

For another view read “The Open Society and its Enemies” by Karl Popper. Volume 1 is about Plato with much about Socrates, and volume 2 is about Hegel and Marx.

In the evolution of man, it doesn't matter what man does, but it must be in balance with all we see in today's world. Man is a new creature here and with our selfish motives we must come to terms with our actions. I talk to all with the thoughts of all economics and how this rules everything we touch. What concerns me is the 2012 as the prophets say its so, i would not take it as truth as they are people that lived a long time ago (religion). There is a degree of accuracy with the developments of mankind in this 21st century, and I'm afraid we wont make it as a human race. How many people does it make to spoil the planet? (just a hint of the religious past history, and man/woman as a whole)
How many starving people on this planet does it take to see the point that the worlds in trouble? How many times are we going to do this lesson?
And why do you only see what you want to see? There comes a time when we see the greed/nature that we all are, hence survival of the species as David Attenborough has pointed out to all of us.

continued.

I'm not going to bore you with details because your minds are sharp and smart, and with the righteous minds in development we can only poise for a moment in a time which is ours. I wonder if you all take time out from your computers and take a walk in the parks and have a look at the wonderful world that you where born in as a human species, I feel your missing the point of life itself. I have given my best thoughts any human can give and if that's not good enough, something else must be giving you the strength to see more than i do. I am but a humble servant in ore of all your great beliefs and structures, but for the life of me I will never figure you humans out in a thousand lifetimes.

In all, we have such a short time here, and it echo's your voices through out time and all is recorded and said in law or not as a growing species. ( Iam starting to sound like foxy )... smile. I have spent 30 years studying human beings and I do like to put down in the simplest of text for all to understand, I hope you don't mind. Its not what we do, its how we do it. The world is such a small place and my 9 year old's tells me this. I think this is a wake up call for all, as they tell me every day.

Good luck

TTM

David f re - A population solely made up of optimists would hasten our extinction. We might survive longer if we recognise reality.

What a pessimistic view

but predictable,

that is what you are peddling afterall.

faced with extinction, a population of pessimists, seeing no point in doing anything, would just lay down curled in a foetal position, whimper and die.

On the other hand, a world made up solely of optimists would find inventive solutions to ensure survival, thus deferring extinction, possibly indefinitely,

And even if extinction is unavoidable, the optimists would turn the wake into a party

Maybe invite the pessimists, but the danger then would be the pessimists would all stand up and have a communal whine, infecting even the optimists with their misery.

- better ignore the miserable b*ggers, thats what I do.

Dear Stern,

I am not peddling pessimism. I am peddling realism, and you seem unable to recognise it.

well... yes, david f

>>Humans thought in religious ways while they were fighting off sabre-toothed tigers<<

I hadn't intended to imply that none of them ever gazed at the night sky, and wondered "Uggg. Ug, ug ugg" as they pondered the infinite.

And I accept that everything Socrates "said" was hearsay.

>>I. F. Stone wrote “The Trial of Socrates”... His book casts a very different light on Socrates from the usual one.<<

But it's a bit like Shakespeare, isn't it?

Even if the person who wrote...

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
to the last syllable of recorded time"

...didn't actually have the name "Shakespeare", it still doesn't detract from the imagery in the words themselves.

>>One reason for the reverence of Socrates and Plato in our society is that they were in the core curriculum of the classics taught in Oxford and Cambridge<<

Another is that they "said" stuff that has resonance today.

Much as that which Jesus "said", as reported in the Bible.

After all, since Jesus left no writing behind him we have to piece his thoughts and actions together from what other people wrote of him.

Don't worry, david f. According to one eminently qualified pessimist, it's humans who'll become extinct, and relatively soon:

<< Frank Fenner sees no hope for humans

Cheryl Jones
The Australian
June 16, 2010

FRANK Fenner doesn't engage in the skirmishes of the climate wars. To him, the evidence of global warming is in. Our fate is sealed.

"We're going to become extinct," the eminent scientist says. "Whatever we do now is too late."

Fenner is an authority on extinction. The emeritus professor in microbiology at the Australian National University played a leading role in sending one species into oblivion: the variola virus that causes smallpox. >>

Full story at http://tiny.cc/hlqpr

While I'm not as pessimistic as Fenner, I share your concern about the 'Sixth Extinction' of other species, attributable to human activities.

All over the world, hundreds of thousands
of scientists and engineers devote their
skills to planning new and more efficient
ways for humans to kill each other: millions
of workers labour to manufacture instruments of
death; and tens of millions of soldiers train
for combat - and many actually go to war.

From a moral and even an economic point of view,
this vast investment of human ingenuity and
energy seems a tragic waste. And looming over
all these military preparations and counter-
preparations is humanity's ultimate threat,
the unleashing of full-scale nuclear war.

The obsessive focus on the threat of weapons as
the way to avoid war also binds us to the central
question: Is anything that the superpowers value
so important that it justifies risking the destruction
of their societies, the murder of hundreds of millions
of people, and the jeopardizing of our very species?

All we can do is hope that their ultimate choice will
be to enhance the life on the bright and lovely planet
on which billions of us share our adventure, rather
than choose to destroy it.

Pericles,

"The truly wise man will know what is right, do what is good, and therefore be happy".

Yours seems to me to be the most reasonable explanation of the way it is with humans on the earth. - I agree. (You seem like quite a wise person - wish I had your power of elucidation).

Arthur Koestler in "The Ghost in the Machine" likened the human condition to one of a rider and a horse without any connection between them.
He wrote : "The rise of the human neocortex is the only example of evolution providing a species with an organ which it does not know how to use. The actualization of its reasoning potentials has been obstructed...by the affect-based activities of the phylogenetically older structures in the nervous system. Inadequate co-ordination between the old and new structures made man's instinct and intellect fall out of step..."

Makes us very different from the other species we share the earth with.

Dear Pericles,

I think you are also a wise man. You generally make good sense.

"I'd rather be a could-be
If I cannot be an are;
Because a could-be is a maybe
Who is reaching for a star.
I'd rather be a has-been
Than a might-have- been, by far;
For a might-have-been has never been,
But a has was once an are!"

(Milton Berle).

Foxy - I love that word play. Funny stuff.

You might be able to help me with something. Years ago I read a book something like: The History of the Short Story. It had a grey cover and it included fables and all sorts of things.

In it, there was one fable in particular that I liked to think about - I can't recall it exactly and I have often searched for it but so far no success in finding the fable again, or the book of short stories (which I wish I could buy again.)

The fable went something like:

Two crows (or maybe vultures) were sitting on the bough of a tree overlooking all the bodies left on a battlefield at Waterloo.

One crow says to the other, "See how perfectly God has ordered everything to provide for our needs?"

Davidf:

http://www.thehistorychannel.com.au/tv-shows/lap-default.aspx

I rather like this though:

http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n4/full/7400951.html

We're so far the only creatures capable of introspection and consideration of the effects of our actions. The rest of nature is brutal and often as cruel as any human could be. I don't imagine an Eden existing just because humanity doesn't. Species have always gone extinct whether or not humans had a hand in it.

I don't posit humanity as outside of nature and I think it's time for a new theme where we are not always considered the destroyers.

Other creatures are also capable of adaptation to us. I think that if we focused on it we would soon realize that symbiotic relationships exist with many other life forms and that not all that we construct or do has a negative impact.

I find it interesting that pessimists usually explain their view as being 'reality'; when my positive view is just as 'real'. Perhaps just less explored and acknowledged. Pessimists seem to me to expect the worst but don't often seem to hope for the best. As an optimist, I tend to expect the best but brace myself for the worst and hope it never happens

Dear Pynchme,

Both pessimists and optimists can call their views reality.

The programs sounded interesting, but we do not have cable so we will not see that channel.

I note the title was population 0. I wish they had written: human population 0. It's as though the other creatures don't count. One thing that bothered me in the reporting of the various wars we have been in is that when casualty figures are mentioned it is usually only our side.

One area which takes a great part of the charitable contributions of my wife and me is Bush Heritage Australia which is dedicated to buying up land for various ecosystems to preserve habitat.

One optimistic thought. Most of the biomass on the earth is in bacteria.

Dear Pynchme,

You're right that nature is brutal and that species have always become extinct whether or not human's have had a hand in it. However, no one species has ever had the ability to alter the environment to the extent that humans have. Our incredible brain with its advanced neocortex is always at the beck and call of our baser instincts - As Koestler point's out - "our reasoning potentials are obstructed."

In his book "Hegemony or Survival" Noam Chomsky cites the opinion of biologist Ernst Mayr. Chomsky says that Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favoured by selection.Mayr wrote,: "The history of life on earth refutes the claim that it is better to be smart than stupid, at least judging from the success of beetles and bacteria." Mayr also pointed out that the average life expectancy of a species was 100,000 years.
Chomsky continues on the theme: "We are entering a period of human history that may provide an answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if It receives a definite answer, the answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted 100,000 years to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else...Humans have demonstrated that capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well."

Halt the Sixth Extinction.

"David f re - A population solely made up of optimists would hasten our extinction. We might survive longer if we recognize reality" and Stern, your quite right.
Right now we believe, as some of the best scientists can predict, if not a fact! that this is the fastest extinction rate the planet has ever seen to the best of our scientific knowledge (and yes a nice play on words foxy) but regardless of our fellow religionists, we are a species that comes under the terms and conditions that all creatures as i believe have evolved here on this wonderful blue green planet.

How mankind will end up will depend on the world working as one. And in case, our leaders haven't noticed, we don't have anywhere else to go. I wouldn't mind if we had another blue green planet to exploit and prosper on with mining and industry with extra room for the billions we are going to be in the next 50 years. But unfortunately the human race has no such luxury's in the world of finite resources and places to grow. Mankind needs to grow up and fast. There are dead zones all around the earth where nothing but jelly fish and underwater deserts which China and the US are experiencing right now. These problems will only get worse. As I've said before, we need to control our populations and become smaller and smarter, or all that we see right now will be gone., and this my friends is reality.

I will say it slowly!

S-M-A-L-L-E-R and S-M-A-R-T-E-R.

Thats how we are going to make it.

TTm.

Davidf: "I note the title was population 0. I wish they had written: human population 0".

Way up at the top of the page (might need to scroll up)it reads:
Life After People.

Maybe it's something like the way your new Eden would look.

Nothing lasts forever. Everything has a beginning and everything eventually has an end. This applies to both living and non living matter. There's only one thing surer than the fact that The Beatles were the best band ever ........ and that thing is our species MUST eventually become extinct. It may take 100 years, 1000 years or 1,000,000 years or 100,000,000 years or more but it WILL eventually happen!

Poirot wrote: "However, no one species has ever had the ability to alter the environment to the extent that humans have."

Dear Poirot,

That is special pleading for the destructiveness of humankind. They were more than one species, but the several forms of life that comprise cyanobacteria made a much greater change than humans have or are likely to have.

They thrive in an atmosphere without free oxygen but produce oxygen as waste. They produced enough oxygen so they poisoned the atmosphere for themselves but produced an atmosphere where other forms of life developed. They increased the concentration of atmospheric oxygen from far less than .1% to about 20%. It happened about 2 billion years ago.

Biblical literalism denies that humans come from other life and maintains that humans are above all other life. We are a tremendously destructive species to the environment, but we are not even above all other life when it comes to destructiveness.

david f

>> They thrive in an atmosphere without free oxygen but produce oxygen as waste. They produced enough oxygen so they poisoned the atmosphere for themselves but produced an atmosphere where other forms of life developed. <<

I am wondering what form of life we humans are preparing the planet for.

I'm betting it won't be mammals, but creatures that thrive on high CO2, methane, lots of plastic and enjoys a good oil slick.

Really enjoying this thread BTW. Thank you.

Poirot:

I've heard that somewhere before about the neocortex and instincts being out of synch. However, considering our physical vulnerability, extinction would have happened a long time ago if it weren't for our brain. Seeking to survive is a basic instinct so in that sense our brain serves us well.

However, we seek survival on two levels - as individuals and as a species. Like a hive of bees I believe that there are times when individuals are willing to give up the ghost (consciously or subconsciously) for the survival of the group as a whole. This might to some extent explain altruism.

As to destroying ourselves, well isn't it the case that there have been fears of overpopulation? It's also the case that there is declining sperm count and fertility.

http://www.earthsave.org/environment/sperm.htm

Despite all the possible contributing factors, maybe at a deeply instinctual level our physiology takes over. Interesting too if lowered fertility is nature's alternative method of population control to replace deaths or the proportion of deaths caused by war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:War_deaths_caused_by_warfare.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War

It seems to me that while we have the technological capability to incur huge death tolls, humanity is losing the penchant for conflict and that overall the proportion of deaths due to war have been declining. Using our neocortex, we have at least attempted to increase the potential for peace by establishing international bodies of various types to resolve disputes.

This sort of warrior gives me cause for hope for humanity:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/26/2937694.htm

Now if we can just use that neocortex to nip down the rampant multi-national corporatism that is exploiting (and harming) whole populations (thinking especially of pharmaceutical companies here)...

Maybe it's a matter (to oversimplify it) of population control via deaths through war, plague and illness is being replaced by a reduction in the capacity to replenish the population via fertility.

Dear david f.
Thank you for that information - most interesting. It seems that our behaviour then is not anything particularly "above and beyond" a species trying to feather its own nest, so to speak.
It's interesting that the cyanobacteria succeeded in poisoning the atmosphere to the extent that it could no longer survive - sounds familiar. The main difference then between the activities of this bacteria and that of homo sapiens sapiens is that we are aware of our impact - and yet we still continue down the same path.

Dear Severin,

Very witty - and probably very true.

Dear Pynchme,

Re: rampant multi-nation corporatism - I totally agree. (Sorry can't comment longer at the moment - am off to daughter's 28th birthday bash).

Poirot - btw your post reminded me of something else.

Have you ever seen the movie Idiocracy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e2OEgafELw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vw2CrY9Igs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVPKNIGCztk&feature=related

Dear Poirot,

I hope you have a perfect daughter. 28 is a perfect number. It is, like 6, the sum of its aliquot divisors.

6 = 1 + 2 + 3
28 = 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14

perfect number = (2 to power (p - 1)) x ((2 to power p) - 1) where p is a prime number

Pynchme re Now if we can just use that neocortex to nip down the rampant multi-national corporatism that is exploiting (and harming) whole populations (thinking especially of pharmaceutical companies here)...

When I consider that statement I think we should first work on applying such scientific resources to eradicating the real harbinger of death being collectivist politics.

Lets face it, collectivism has butchered more people that rampant multi-national corporatism

Collectivist politicians have felt a god given right, akin to the divine right of Kings to murder people for simply holding an alternative view

The proponents of multi-national corporatism have not, seeing such death of consumers as an anti-marketing influence.

And now we have seen the public execution of one collectivist politician, by his own Praetorian guard (Julia playing Brutus, in a poor-man in clogs remake of Julius Caesar).

Hopefully, we will see a similarly decisive rejection of the politics of envy and collectivism at the next election.

Julia is on her honeymoon today, but all we need the public to be reminded of her incompetence in handling tax payers funds by spending on over-priced and pointless school halls and her collective responsibility for insulation induced house fires for the honeymoon to end and she will, likewise be seen as barren and several of Henry VIII wives, to be consigned the same fate as them and her political predecessor.

Dear Stern,

You may have a point - I'll bet those cyanobacteria were a collectivist mob.

Dear David,

I wish I had a more mathematical mind - fascinating.

Dear Pynchme,

Thanks for the links to Idiocracy (love the title) - will catch up with it soon.

I will call this piece, blind-mans Freddy. smile.

"They thrive in an atmosphere without free oxygen but produce oxygen as waste. They produced enough oxygen so they poisoned the atmosphere for themselves but produced an atmosphere where other forms of life developed. They increased the concentration of atmospheric oxygen from far less than .1% to about 20%. It happened about 2 billion years ago."

......and Oh the irony lol, it's fascinating to watch the ignorant champions of a dieing world. "The human population zero" is no doubt an unavoidable outcome which all species will incur sooner or later in the rotating worlds of create and destroy. It seems Jillian Gillard has the direction and fortitude to see Australia's future predicaments before the realities (which every human on the planet enjoys the game of emu) which is obvious, but the game of Russian roulette with the "very living thing" that supports your unconvincing attempt of humor and satire,.... which servers you no value;)

LOL run little lemmings run.LOL.

David F.. Your quest to be sure is a noble cause, and good luck with it all.

So! so some of you think we should continue on our present time line? good luck with that. As for the end of days, that's just ridiculous, the human race will not be blessed with such a swift end, more like a slow, chocking, starving, barren landscape which will probably resemble a scene out of mad max. smile.

Which brings to mind another movie called the day the earth stood still, which took a grand disaster before the human race woke up to the fact of the greedy reckless behavior (you may want to note the word behavior)which is just the human way.

But while your boat is still floating, keep on smiling.

17 million? You know! I think I can see that Eden.

Be smart! and shut the gates. NOW!

If only the city of troy had listened.


TT

Poirot re - You may have a point - I'll bet those cyanobacteria were a collectivist mob.

well they do exhibit similar reasoning skills, Poirot -

collectivist or cyanobacteria, the brighter ones even aspire to the analytical ability of plankton

Stern

I have one sentence to say to you.

The world as one.

TTM

Think than Move.... the world as one

yes now you have said it I suppose you might care to explain it

and when you have done explaining it (which should take about half a line since the notion is so shallow), you might use the rest of your post discounting the notion of

personal consciousness, human rights and every other value which views cognitive human beings not as "one" but as many, separate and unique, complete with self-will, self-determination and personal ambition.

If you do not I will assume you are working on evolving opposing digits

You can try this on for starters. The world as one is not a new concept and quite frankly, a divided world just doesn't work. Many great people from all around the world including bono( U2 singer ) are seeing the human race destroying each other for stupid reason or another.

Or maybe you have a better idea that includes the future of the earth and all of mankind.

Love to hear it!

The World Is One, Whether You Like It or Not"
Anna Shen interviews JORGE SAMPAIO, U.N. High Representative for the Alliance of Civilisations and former President of Portugal
Jorge Sampaio / Credit:UN Photo/Mark Garten
Jorge Sampaio

Credit:UN Photo/Mark Garten

UNITED NATIONS, May 24, 2010 (IPS) - Since its inception in 2005, the Alliance of Civilisations (AoC) has worked to improve understanding and cooperation across nations, cultures and religions in order to counter the forces that fuel polarisation and extremism.

At the helm is seasoned statesman Jorge Sampaio, who served as president of Portugal from 1996 to 2006. As the AoC high representative, he brings an enormous wealth of experience to the table. During his time in office, Sampaio championed numerous international causes, including HIV/AIDS, human rights and the independence of East Timor. He also served as the U.N. Special Envoy to Stop Tuberculosis.

Next on his agenda is the upcoming AoC conference in Rio de Janeiro on May 27-29, which aims to build bridges across cultures and countries. Excerpts from the interview follow.

TTM

Or, the world as one in this light, which may high-light the title.

Just in time for Earth Day (April 22) the faculty at the college, at which environmental issues are the sole focus, was asked to help prioritize the planet’s most pressing environmental problems.

Overpopulation came out on top, with several professors pointing out its ties to other problems that rank high on the list.

“Overpopulation is the only problem,” said Dr. Charles A. Hall, a systems ecologist. “If we had 100 million people on Earth — or better, 10 million — no others would be a problem.” (Current estimates put the planet’s population at more than six billion.)

Dr. Allan P. Drew, a forest ecologist, put it this way: “Overpopulation means that we are putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than we should, just because more people are doing it and this is related to overconsumption by people in general, especially in the ‘developed’ world.”

“But, whether developed or developing,” said Dr. Susan Senecah, who teaches the history of the American environmental movement, “everyone is encouraged to ‘want’ and perceive that they ‘need’ to consume beyond the planet’s ability to provide.”

The ESF faculty pointed to climate change as the second most-pressing issue, with the need to develop renewable energy resources to replace fossil fuels coming in third.

“Experimenting with the earth’s climate and chemistry has great risks,” said Dr. Thomas E. Amidon, who invented a process for removing energy-rich sugars from wood and fermenting those sugars into ethanol. “This is a driver in climate change and loss of biodiversity and is a fundamental problem underlying our need to strive for sustainability.”

Rounding out the top 10 issues on the ESF list are overconsumption, the need for more sustainable practices worldwide, the growing need for energy conservation, the need for humans to see themselves as part of the global ecosystem, overall carbon dioxide emissions, the need to develop ways to produce consumer products from renewable resources, and dwindling fresh water resources.

TTM

Or the last chance we are as spices (Again) The world needs to be as one.The fact that the vast majority of the species that have existed on Earth have become extinct, has led to the suggestion that all species have a finite lifespan and thus human extinction would be inevitable. Dave Raup and Jack Sepkoski found for example a twenty-six-million-year periodicity in elevated extinction rates, caused by factors unknown (See David M. Raup. "Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck" (1992, Norton). Based upon evidence of past extinction rates Raup and others have suggested that the average longevity of an invertebrate species is between 4-6 million years, while that of vertebrates seems to be 2-4 million years. The shorter period of survival for mammals lies in their position further up the food chain than many invertebrates, and therefore an increased liability to suffer the effects of environmental change. A counter-argument to this is that humans are unique in their adaptive and technological capabilities, so it is not possible to draw reliable inferences about the probability of human extinction based on the past extinctions of other species. Certainly, the evidence collected by Raup and others suggested that generalist, geographically dispersed species, like humans, generally have a lower rate of extinction than those species that require a particular habitat. In addition, the human species is probably the only species with a conscious prior knowledge of their own demise, and therefore would be likely to take steps to avoid it.

Humans are very similar to other primates in their propensity towards intra-species violence; Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee (ISBN 0-09-980180-9) estimates that 64% of hunter-gather societies engage in warfare every two years.

TTM

Stern! Where are you and foxy, the old or young thing?.lol.

TTm

TTM - The fact that the vast majority of the species that have existed on Earth have become extinct, has led to the suggestion that all species have a finite lifespan and thus human extinction would be inevitable.

Yes its called evolution

As for “human extinction would be inevitable.”

I suppose i should try to decide whether to do the irresponsible thing

Spend what resources I can muster and have a party

Or the responsible thing

Spend whatever sources I can muster on an insurance policy

Speaking personally, I think I will stay straddling the fence, do neither and hope that I manage to shuffle off this mortal coil before the extinction happens

as for old or young... try grey roofing tiles with a new fire burning in the grate

Stern.

"Speaking personally, I think I will stay straddling the fence, do neither and hope that I manage to shuffle off this mortal coil before the extinction happens"

Yes Agreed. but I tend to be more optimistic since my roof tiles are not quite in the spectrum of that particular colour scheme. smile.

But the above does point out that mankind has the power to holt, to stop the extinction, by governments promoting campaigns with the reality based facts which can alter the minds of the young peoples of this planet in A hope they see and breed less.

And knowing humans as I do and yourself, they will just roll along until the sh@t hits the fan. But before that happens, you and I will be long gone and your children,s children,s will be quite old indeed.

If something can be done to slow the processes, to give humans a century or two longer, I think this is worth doing.

TTM

Stern.
Mammals of all shapes and sizes is my PHD is in the study in this particular instance of the current time line which mammals present themselves in co-ordnance of our species. The true fact is, is that our species can not stand each other and we only come together when breeding time suits our values in correlation of the species particulars in the category of mammals as a whole. So what this means you humans have forgotten their place in time, and the extinction which is relevant in all mammal species does and will dictate the terms and conditions of not only our species but all mammals in a whole as well as given the time line of our existences does not value us as anything important to the time line which we now present ourselves in. Dinosaurs had their time and produced nothing worth while and I guess the gods also agreed with this on this particular train of thought. Yes Stern, it is basically evolution and the religious value was invented to tame the mammal thoughts which in turn created our societies and our histories and all that we have investigated throughout our short times of being here, which you all can see we are having a catastrophic affect with us being mammals in the way we do things.

Mammals are a new invention which I must say are a negative with there larger brains and the fundamental facts are, and I will say this to all human mammals,

Look deeper within yourselves, the face you look at is the three faces have I.

And guess who you are.

All the best.

Just some food for thought.

TTM