OT: "What the Heck Should I Eat?"

[lurkerlion]

We can be assured of one thing: No matter what or how we eat, if we confine ourselves to this planet, eventually we will run out of resources to support the population. As humans we seem to want everything that tends to grow population -- better medicine, better food, better health, longer lives, more comforts, more sex, and so on. Those are the problems we tend to work. But in reality, if we look at all of the world's most difficult problems, the only real, long-term solution (to all of them) is population control. Resources will run out no matter how efficient we become. The inevitable is simply delayed by improvements in efficiency. We will reach equilibrium like all other species on the earth, and that state is always painful.

The second law of thermodynamics. No system is permanently sustainable without outside input. That is why we should all strive to do better. My personal hot button is that people blindly advocate for "solutions" which actually cause bigger problems later.

Your solution is to thin the herd. That is probably true but the human condition is to go forward with faith that we will solve whatever problem eventually. Oh yeah, man can be pretty stupid and cocky.

 

[Op2]

We can be assured of one thing: No matter what or how we eat, if we confine ourselves to this planet, eventually we will run out of resources to support the population. As humans we seem to want everything that tends to grow population -- better medicine, better food, better health, longer lives, more comforts, more sex, and so on. Those are the problems we tend to work. But in reality, if we look at all of the world's most difficult problems, the only real, long-term solution (to all of them) is population control. Resources will run out no matter how efficient we become. The inevitable is simply delayed by improvements in efficiency. We will reach equilibrium like all other species on the earth, and that state is always painful.

I don't think we'll run out of resources. We're getting more and more efficient at using resources and the rate of population growth is slowing. When people get rich (which is middle class by our standards) they have fewer kids. And people across the world are getting rich. Some projections have the world population starting to shrink by the end of the century.

One interesting metric the amount of GDP per unit of energy used. Richer countries get more efficient in that they create more GDP per unit of energy. So you can be rich without using as much.

Some people say "The US should cut back on carbon" and others respond "It wouldn't make any difference because China and India pollute so much." They do pollute so much but that's because they're poorer and when a country is poorer, the ways for it to get richer involve a lot of pollution. And then as it gets richer and richer it needs to pollute less.