a bit off topic, but not so much
there is a strong movement like what Harry says, a new phase (among many
previous) of malthusianism...
some says that it is the reaction of elits when their garden
(environment, confort) is menaces by a herd of poors becoming rich...
To be honest I totally support technically the vision about inefficiency of
meat, impact of population...
I am an engineer, and our mind is to optimize all, for the best and worse
(I'll avoid godwin point for citing a big European engineering success,
that can compare only to Normandy debarkation or Hiroshima)
same for the cost of a social system, health insurance for poor people(even
if as an engineer I see that contrary to belief social security her works
better economically, complex system OT)...
as an engineer, yes, i see the inefficiencies, or the efficiency...
however like you, I think that if we can afford it, it is our goal to reach
that level of luxury...
much better than golden tape in bathroom.
morally I put priority, and heath and comfort for all humans, including all
factors (including environment at a selfish but holistic level) get first .
I am Promethean, not Gaïaist.
it reach the problem of LENR where I see all the Malthusianists afraid of,
or ignoring the new energetic orgy that one can anticipate...
anyway the lesson with LENR is one that I've learn with age at work :
- don't over anticipate! prepare for the worst, but not too early, because
it can get worse differently, or nice unexpectedly
- be carefull with subsidies, since it should subisdies common wealth like
knowledge, and not business...
imagine all the cash lost/stollen to prepare for biofuel,solar and wind
technology transition, while it wasn't yet ready to be cost efficient, and
will never be, and you could guess it just by opening your eyes and not
accepting frauded business plan by green and their corps
we could take advantage of some recent finding on biofuel or low temp
turbines, but so few...
imagine iw we simply developped the most efficient solution : house
insulation, thermal efficiency, electric efficiency, smart grid, just
keeping solar panel for space, and wind generator for islands
overplanning is often a big waste, I see it sadly at work. I beg for
forgiving for my youth crimes of over design.
(in IT compare cascade programming with iterative or agile/lean programming)
2012/2/19 Robert Lynn robert.gulliver.l...@gmail.com
When you say the human population pressure would be reduced, what do you
mean?
Do you mean there would be fewer hungry people?
Yes, and if we could make animal food through chemical processing from CO2
and H2O then we wouldn't require as much land for agriculture and so we
could have more forests and parks.
Growing plants for food may be energy inefficient, but eating animals
strikes me as indulgent
and unethical if we could chemical synethsize all our food needs.
Harry
Is it excessively indulgent to go on holiday? Or own an car? Or own
a carnivorous pet like a dog or cat? Have 2.1 children? Or any of a
thousand other energy or resource hungry hobbies? You could survive in an
unheated single room shack, with no electricity by eating
a calorifically restricted diet (known to increase lifespan) while never
doing anything that would use more than the bare minimum of energy or
resources, because by the same excessive use of resources
consumed argument anything more than that would also be unethical. Perhaps
even your existence and the cost it imposes on resources is unethical?
So it really depends on what your article of faith is regarding the
utility of human existence. Some examples include; adhering to a set of
religious beliefs, perpetuating the human race, maximising your personal
enjoyment, improving the average human condition. These various articles
of faith are all personal judgements based on what makes different people
happy, but none of them can be justified on any rational basis. Personally
I am mostly about the last three, and my ethics are grounded in wanting to
have a nice friendly society that I enjoy living in. But I would prefer a
million cute little puppies or kittens died excruciating deaths than 1
person because I don't see that animals have any intrinsic worth other than
their utility to us. For me animal utility includes their contribution to
allowing us to survive but also the pleasure they give us by their
existence and in some cases how tasty they are.
The universe is not a friendly place, animals eat each other with no care
for their victims suffering etc, or driving others species to extinction,
just as some bacterium or virus is likely to have a good try at wiping
humans out in the next few hundred years and all life on earth is likely to
be extinct in a billion years without intelligent intervention.
