…and this is a 
Suicide is not the highest form of self-interest
Category: Environment
Posted on: April 4, 2006 5:21 PM, by PZ Myers
We have a little war going on in this thread. Some people are arguing that we shouldn't assume human beings are the most important creatures bar none around, while other people are angry that Eric Pianka would have such high regard for other organisms on Earth and would urge us to make room and restrict our population.
I'm personally more sympathetic to the egalitarian view that denies humanity a privileged position, except in our own personal esteem, but OK, let's play the game. Let's assume that human beings are the most important, most precious, most essential species on the entire planet—heck, the entire Universe. We must do everything in our power to guarantee their safety and prosperity. I will simply and unilaterally defer to the other side's opinion.
Now what?
What should we do to maximize the health and happiness of the human race? What are the selfish, self-centered actions that we ought to carry out to make the largest number of people maximally happy for the longest period of time?
I'm afraid that even with my immense concession, your best answer is to listen to the "enviro-wackos". They're the ones thinking in the long term about sustainability and diversity. They're the ones trained to understand all the interactions going on on a healthy planet, who not only appreciate the totality of life here, but are even aware of the rich species diversity here. They're the ones who realize you can't pave the planet and use the oceans for a sewer, and expect humanity to survive.
Do you even understand the argument? I'm not saying that we need to preserve the snail darter because it is a valuable organism in and of itself, but because we are screwing over ourselves when we smash and poison our environment to such a degree that as innocuous a creature as a small fish is unable to survive. I'm being greedy, not altruistic. It's a position both sides ought to understand.
People are trying to argue that we are not currently overpopulated, which is ludicrous. We're seeing rapid habitat destruction and a wave of extinctions all around the globe; we're seeing environmental catastrophes that are killing people. If we were in a sustainable balance with our fellow species, we would not be seeing these ongoing and irreversible losses. If your priority is humanity über alles, are you working to conserve energy and slow global warming? Why not? Do you realize that pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and overfishing the oceans and deforesting the tropics is going to reduce the number of people who can live here in peace and prosperity?
It's exasperating to see so many people pretending that holding humanity in the highest esteem means you've got the right to trash your home…your only home.
Comments
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Posted by: JK | April 4, 2006 5:29 PM
I just don't happen to think there is a such a thing as a particular "sustainable balance" or a world spirit that pays back supposed wrongs done to it. There are many problems that mankind is causing both ecology and himself. Yes, we have to solve them for our own good, and frankly because we're biophilic.
But radically cutting back on the population? First of all, not going to happen. Second of all, population isn't itself the major factor anymore: its the level and application of technology. I respect Pianka and hate to see him getting attacked by a bunch of psychos. But come on. That doesn't mean I have to agree with him or his conclusions.
Posted by: plunge | April 4, 2006 5:38 PM
Ah, what the hell. The Rapture's comin' anyway......
Posted by: Rocky | April 4, 2006 5:38 PM
Unfortunately, there's something right about Rocky's remark. If it's true that 30% of Americans are evangelicals, it seems safe to assume that about a third of Americans -- at least -- aren't concerned about environmental destruction because they are firmly convinced that they have a real home, a true home, waiting for them just around the corner (and getting closer all the time).
There's a Jack Chick tract about this, called "No Escape!," which is unintentionally funny, as all of Chick's tracts are.
But taking this into account, combined with the many, many others who simply don't perceive their utter dependence on a healthy biosphere, even the argument from anthropocentrism will fall on deaf ears.
I just hope that we don't end up hearing Planka say, "I told you so!"
Posted by: Dr. Spinoza | April 4, 2006 5:44 PM
Even if he's right then there's only one chance in a hundred you'll hear him say it, so I wouldn't worry.
Posted by: bmurray | April 4, 2006 5:49 PM
More important to me than people deciding it's okay to trash their home is their presumption in choosing to smash mine too.
Posted by: bmurray | April 4, 2006 5:50 PM
plunge: One way or another the human population is going to have to be "cut back on". Whether we do that voluntarily or nature does it for us in a most unpleasant manner, it's going to have to happen. I think it's better that we do it ourselves in the most humane way possible than ignore it for awhile and then have billions of people die in misery from famine and pestilence.
Posted by: Cyde Weys | April 4, 2006 5:50 PM
"we shouldn't assume human beings are the most important creatures bar none"
Rubbish I'm the most important creature around and I'm not sure anything else exists at all, except this beer that is.
(Guess that's what comes from reading philosophy)
Posted by: Dave C | April 4, 2006 5:58 PM
"no... sustainable balance...no ...world spirit that pays back supposed wrongs done to it"? what are you talking about? you don't need to think of mother nature as a spiritual entity to appreciate that we're trashing our earth. and how could there not be such a concept as a sustainable balance for human existance on earth? it's no more than the population of humans the world can keep providing for in the long term. it's not a hard concept. sure, we can increase that number by being environmentally responsible, but the current overwhelming strategy, of simply cutting deeper and deeper into our resources- that can't last.
we're like a city that is rapidly increasing its population without a commensurate increase in infrastrucutre. sure, for a while we can do things like use the existing infrastructure more efficiently, or tap into still existing but previously dormant forms of infrastructure- but after a while, you're going to see increased strain in various parts of the city- in transport, or in hospitals- and eventually, parts of those systems will fail, putting even greater pressure on the city to cope- but seeing as we can't import anything from outside the city, we're not going to be able to do much.
Now, I don't know how radical policies need to be in terms of cutting population- I have a strong moral objection to things like china's one-child law (and obviously, I don't think we ought to unleash airborne ebola- and I don't htink pianka thinks that either). but i certainly think that policies such as promoting birth control and providing free contraceptives in developing countries (where the current increase is happening) is a bloody good idea, and need a whole lot more priority- from individuals and other countries if the US govt won't get off it's backside.
you don't need to believe in a 'world spirit' to get that.
Posted by: leah | April 4, 2006 5:59 PM
No, no, you aren't getting it.
They're not arguing that humans are the most important beings ever in some general sense.
They're arguing that *the humans who are alive right now,*, you and I, are the most important beings ever. That's in comparison to future people, and past people. Screw those guys. When was the last time untold future generations of children bought me lunch, or washed my car?
Posted by: Patrick | April 4, 2006 6:01 PM
Again - we are but fleas agitating the hide of a far greater organism. Humans ain't squat. Christians are animals. My grandchildren are going to die a painful death the result of human hubrus, of christian, white, facsist pig-fawking arrogance. First thing let's do, let's kill all the christians.
Posted by: Thomas Ware | April 4, 2006 6:13 PM
Rocky-
You stole my thunder!! Honestly, there is such a divergence between the exhortation in the scriptures to be stewards of the earth, and fundie Xtians belief that humans have dominion over all things . What can you do? Stewardship means work and planning, and dominion sounds like king of the castle ass whuppin time- which one would you pick if you had a choice???
Posted by: impatientpatient | April 4, 2006 6:20 PM
For years, I have used the phrase "unenlightened self-interest" to describe most of the enviro-whacko movement. I'll admit that the first component of that description might be more or less applicable depending on exactly who you're talking about, but the second part is the absolute truth.
Saving the world doesn't do you any good if you're not going to be around to enjoy it.
Posted by: Dan | April 4, 2006 6:25 PM
Well said Thomas Ware - and without the slightest hint of irrational fear, hatred or stupidity in your tone.
[/sarcasm]
Posted by: Lurker | April 4, 2006 6:28 PM
At a couple of readings in the Seventies, I heard Gary Snyder tell a story about a Japanese itinerant Buddhist holy man whose punchline was, "No need survive!" It got a laugh, but Snyder believed then what Dr. Myers seems to now, that destroying the environment in the long run destroys us. Snyder has written since that he had a change of mind: human life might yet survive in its own toxic waste heap of a planet where the only wildlife was rats and roaches. We could ride our SUVs armored against radiation and acidy smog over the desert of pavement past the factory farms to the fast food restaurants and still test as human.
But that prompts a normative question: would we be living a life worthy of human beings? Snyder doesn't put it that way, but I think he agrees that human nature is normative; to be worthy of the name human (and not merely to test as human), we need to rest our hands on treetrunks, to be startled at the birds we startle underfoot, to pick burrs off our socks, to negotiate the same trail as the elk, even to have our trash plundered by raccoons. Better to be shat on by the blackbirds than live in a plastic bubble.
On this showing, leaving the snaildarter's waters undammed preserves and renews us, however useful the power generated by the damming to such distintively human ends as electric canopeners and illuminated billboards. Being human in the full sense needs wilderness to fill the senses.
Posted by: Dabodius | April 4, 2006 6:31 PM
You want to control population? I've got the answer for you, and it's a proven answer: wealth. Wealthy people have, on average, fewer kids. As the world as a whole gets wealthier, birth rates will drop, and eventually the population will stabilize.
This discussion continues to entertain me. "We're important and special, so we need to take care of each other. That's why we all need to stop using energy and having babies, or the Earth will purge us with Ebola!" "No! You heathen baby-eating Darwinist liberal! Humans are all important and each has a precious soul of his or her own! That's why our loving God is going to rapture about a fourth of the world population to heaven and kill everyone else and roast them all in hell!"
This howler is great:
"Again - we are but fleas agitating the hide of a far greater organism. Humans ain't squat. Christians are animals. My grandchildren are going to die a painful death the result of human hubrus, of christian, white, facsist pig-fawking arrogance. First thing let's do, let's kill all the christians."
Oh boy... the trolls are hungry aren't they! Feed me! Feed me!
I've got a better idea. How about all the green ideologues kill themselves to reduce our burden upon the Earth, and how about all the fundies sell all their belongings and go off to some island somewhere and wait for the rapture.
Meanwhile, I'm going to go pick up some genetically modified food, turn on every appliance in my house, and sit back and watch Brokeback Mountain. Ahh... energy consumption, industrial farming, and a couple cowboys getting it on!
Posted by: Adam Ierymenko | April 4, 2006 6:35 PM
First thing let's do, let's kill all the christians.
That sounds like a modest proposal.
Posted by: Swiftboaters who haven't read Swift | April 4, 2006 6:36 PM
BTW, you're all going to need the roster for this thread:
http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/
Posted by: Adam Ierymenko | April 4, 2006 6:38 PM
PZ sayz:
Do you have a definition of what it means to 'maximize the health and happiness of the human race'? I can think of some wacko extreme examples that would accomplish this (mind altering "happy drugs" and a forced nutrition/exercise plan), but I doubt you had this in mind.
There are many ways to achieve what you want. How you get there is the bigger question in my mind. As for me, I'm most concerned with doing what is right. Maximum health and happiness will follow from there - at least I think so.
There obviously needs to be a balance between our freedom to do what we want and our responsibility to do what is right.
Posted by: Lurker | April 4, 2006 6:44 PM
am I to assume "Thomas" is a troll?
Call me paranoid, but I'm half expecting to see a comment appear real soon now on a thread on some other blog (I won't mention names...) linking to "Thomas"' comment above and screaming "SEE? Those godless atheist darwiniazis want to kill us all!!!!!"
Or do I need to adjust my tinfoil....?
Posted by: Bored Huge Krill | April 4, 2006 6:47 PM
First, it's important to point out that choosing the "humanity über alles" versus "humanity should give equal value to animals and humans" does change the calculation about the "right" number of humans. And if you start with Pianka's "humans are of equal value to animals", you're going to come up with a low number of humans as the "right" population level.
However, I'm not sure where that "right" number is. Perhaps the world is overpopulated when you start thinking about what happens when the third world starts using energy and resources at first world levels. (Case in point: the US uses 7.3 billion barrels of oil per year. If everyone started using oil at US rates, global oil consumption would be around 160 billion per year. Known oil reserves are around 1.2 trillion barrels; 7.5 years worth of oil at those consumption levels.) Obviously, the earth cannot sustain that kind of energy consumption. This means on of three things: (1) keep the third world at poverty level (which only delays the problem), (2) discover new technologies to handle the problem, or (3) depopulation. Obviously, we cannot continue to use the same technologies that we currently use. Personally, I think we're currently ok with the population levels, but we really can't add too many more people. Further, there a big unknown in the technology side of things. If we were having this discussion 100 years ago, when the population was much smaller and technology more primitive, I don't think any of us could've concluded that the human population could every reach current levels of 6.5 billion. Technology will likely allow the third world to become more prosperous without causing human civilization to collapse under overharvesting of resources. But, we should limit the risks by reaching replacement fertility levels worldwide, as most of the developed world already has.
Posted by: BC | April 4, 2006 6:52 PM
BHK,
Such troll tactics are pretty common on other blogs, so I don't think your tinfoil needs adjusting.
Posted by: idlemind | April 4, 2006 6:56 PM
"plunge: One way or another the human population is going to have to be "cut back on".
People have been saying this for centuries. I'm unconvinced.
"Whether we do that voluntarily or nature does it for us in a most unpleasant manner, it's going to have to happen. I think it's better that we do it ourselves in the most humane way possible than ignore it for awhile and then have billions of people die in misery from famine and pestilence."
While there are many ecological problems one can point to that can cause real harm, the general statements of vast doom if the population growth isn't curbed just don't convince me. There's a legitimate range of debate here.
And heck, if general trends continue, far from dying of horrible causes, our descendants will have a far higher quality of life than we do, and be much richer. If the redistribution of wealth is legitimate, we should be looking for ways to transfer some of that future wealth to ourselves in the present instead of looking for ways to make them even richer and better off. :)
Posted by: plunge | April 4, 2006 6:58 PM
But if we ruin the environment, what will happen to the PYGMIES+DWARVES!?!?!?
Posted by: darthWilliam | April 4, 2006 7:00 PM
"If it's true that 30% of Americans are evangelicals, it seems safe to assume that about a third of Americans -- at least -- aren't concerned about environmental destruction because they are firmly convinced that they have a real home, a true home, waiting for them just around the corner (and getting closer all the time)."
I live in an area with a very large number of evangelical Protestants, whom I would consider to be fairly mainstream these days. It really does not seem to be a matter of "unconcern" for the most part; it is considered an actual GOAL. I have heard people happily speak of this destruction as a positive thing, something to hope for-- and something that will bring about the "Rapture", which they feel that they, as good Christians, should actively hope to see happen in their lifetime.
Posted by: L | April 4, 2006 7:01 PM
Adam larymenko--
It's actually education and not wealth per se that's correlated with lower birth rates; but you knew that, didn't you?
Posted by: phototaxi | April 4, 2006 7:03 PM
...to Mars!
Posted by: Cody | April 4, 2006 7:04 PM
Ever try convincing someone with an anthropocentric view that the extinction of the pupfish or spotted owl will lower their quality of life? There is a tendency to label all who predict environmental consequences as doomsayers. And, by the way, this is same category that covers the rapture-ready christians. What cliff can we environmentalists point to as a justification to apply the brakes?
"You want to control population? I've got the answer for you, and it's a proven answer: wealth."
And what do you think will be the environmental consequences of this increase in personal wealth? Six billion people (and counting rapidly), each with 1st world living standards?
Posted by: BrianT | April 4, 2006 7:05 PM
One of CNNOnline's "top stories" :
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/04/jesus.science.reut/index.html
Study claims ice, not water, kept Jesus afloat
University professor attempts to explain miracles with science
Whether to laugh or cry? That is the question.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | April 4, 2006 7:06 PM
I wonder if "humanity" in the civilization sence of the word is a detramental gene/meme combination. Remeber, after you die, you are little more than a future sedementary rock. Nothing cares after the planet dies. Frankly, nothing cares now: we're all a chemical reactions that interact and create the illusion of complexity.
Posted by: Mike Fox | April 4, 2006 7:09 PM
I think you can make the same arguments for share holder profits. How often do you hear that a company has to make a certain decision to maximize the share holders money at the expense of long term stability? It really is quite short-sighted.
Posted by: Whimsical Monkey | April 4, 2006 7:23 PM
BrianT - "rapture-ready Christians" Now, individually wrapped, microwaveable, single-serving Christians!
Posted by: Buffalo Gal | April 4, 2006 7:32 PM
I hold the belief you are refering to. I realize that aour lives are not sustainable at the moment. I think that what is truly sustainable is sort of disappointing--trivial, pointless, and depressing.
The solution? Get off Earth, fill the rest of the universe, and prosper as long as possible. Satisfy the environmentalists long enough to ensure the spread of the human race, then throw away the Earth like a used tissue. I'm willing to concede that we need to control CO2 emissions if we are to last long enough to figure out how to do this. But I'm not discounting the possibility that we might have to accelerate past the point of no return in a final push to get off this rock.
Posted by: Mayonaise | April 4, 2006 7:34 PM
Mayo - "get off the earth?"
Are you freaking serious?
Currently the most people ever lofted into orbit in one shot is seven.
Suppose we manage to increase the efficiency of our tech a thousand-fold... and suppose instead of launching those 7 thousand people 2-3 times a year, we can do it every other day.
That STILL won't make a dent.
All that will mean is that there's a certain very few lucky elites who will get to use far more than their fair share of resources in order to escape, while the vast majority of people stay behind and try to survive.
Brilliant idea. And where will those lucky few go? How about MArs? We can terraform it! Yes, that's right, we can't manage to not fuck up a perfectly evolved and self-regulating ecosystem, we're not smart enough - so the solution is to go to some third-rate planet that DOESN'T have a functioning ecosystem - and build one from scratch! Yeah, that'll work!!
Posted by: craig | April 4, 2006 8:02 PM
It WILL work!
Posted by: Mike Fox | April 4, 2006 8:24 PM
Can we send our surrent elites?
Posted by: Mike Fox | April 4, 2006 8:28 PM
surrent is the new, hip way of saying "current" - in case there was confusion.
Posted by: Mike Fox | April 4, 2006 8:29 PM
There is no feasible way to export people at anything close to the rate we build new ones. I won't dispute we need to get into space, but it's not so we can live there. It's so there'll be something to feed the resource needs we'll have when we have 16 billion people living here.
Posted by: bmurray | April 4, 2006 8:31 PM
There is just no way that the existing population is getting off the planet with anything approaching technology forseeable in the next few thousand years, and there's still nowhere really viable to go. We're stuck here folks. Get used to each other. :)
Posted by: plunge | April 4, 2006 8:33 PM
"People are trying to argue that we are not currently overpopulated, which is ludicrous."
I haven't read the other comments here to see whether this has already been properly addressed. But either way, I think I can do so in a few sentences:
Symptoms that are regularly believed to be caused by overpopulation can also equally be seen as symptoms of poor population management. Given the right adjustments, Earth can sustain far larger human populations and population densities than it currently does, whilst also suffering far less from negative human impact.
The key is not in the numbers, but in how the numbers are managed. Reduction in the numbers would be a defeatist approach to the problem. Humanity does not need to lose out in order for the rest of Earth's occupants to have their situations improved.
Posted by: Matt | April 4, 2006 8:38 PM
Nonsense! The emergence of human technological civilization and the onset of the Sixth Great Mass Extinction are obviously only coincidentally juxtaposed. We'd expect a Great Mass Extinction every few dozen million years anyway -- it's not utterly unreasonable to think that one might happen to occur just as an event without precedent in the known universe takes place. Right?
Right?
Posted by: Caledonian | April 4, 2006 8:45 PM
Mike, I was thinking that instead of spending the ungodly (ack!) amount of money necessary to send thousands of elites to a terraformed mars, we just spend a fraction of that on an ad campaign to convince them they're going to mars... and just enough on tech to get them to low earth orbit.
With no oxygen.
wait.... did I just advocate extermination? Egads!
Posted by: craig | April 4, 2006 8:52 PM
Matt wrote:
"Given the right adjustments, Earth can sustain far larger human populations and population densities than it currently does, whilst also suffering far less from negative human impact."
How do you know that?
I suspect that all the simple Malthus style calculations that spell our doom could be wrong -- they do keep failing because we keep inventing ways to put off the collapse. For example, Norman Borlaug and his "green revolution" with plant breeding for improved seeds and better farming systems. It was Borlaug who probably tripped up Paul Ehrlich and his predictions in the book; "The Population Bomb."
"The key is not in the numbers, but in how the numbers are managed. Reduction in the numbers would be a defeatist approach to the problem. Humanity does not need to lose out in order for the rest of Earth's occupants to have their situations improved."
Maybe -- but you'll have to spell out how to convince me. You can't just assume we'll keep inventing our way out of this coming crisis.
Posted by: Norman Doering | April 4, 2006 8:56 PM
'You can't just assume we'll keep inventing our way out of this coming crisis.'
Ironicly, the fewer people who do not just assume we'll invent our way out of the next crisis, the more likely we'll be successful in mitigation, adaptation, and/or prevention.
Posted by: llewelly | April 4, 2006 9:17 PM
The point of getting off the planet is not to reduce the population of Earth, but simply to not have all our eggs in one planet.
If you look at the REALLY long term, no Earth-based strategy can be sustainable anyway: once the sun blows up, that's it for Earth. And there are plenty of misfortunes that could befall it earlier than that. Would you like to live on Earth during the next end-Permian or K-T event, or would you prefer to watch it from a safe distance?
Assuming such a disaster could be foreseen, we'll have to somehow either evacuate Earth, or those who survive (off Earth and possibly outside the solar system altogether) will have to carry on. Provided, of course, that you consider the long-term survival of the human species or its descendants a worthwhile goal. In case of a disaster that *can't* be foreseen far enough ahead to do anything meaningful, it's even more important to get part of the human species off Earth ASAP. Consider it an off-site backup.
Evacuating the Earth is not necessarily out of the question for a sufficiently large civilization using the resources of several other solar systems for the project; the fact that it can't be done using only resources *on* the Earth is not the same as saying it can't be done at all.
To paraphrase an old slogan: Think galactically, act globally.
Posted by: Chris | April 4, 2006 9:23 PM
Current rate of increase is, what, 100 million people per year? So you need to ship more than 250,000 people off planet every day to break even. I agree getting off the planet is a good plan for eggs-in-one-basket reasons, but it doesn't speak to population, which is the topic at hand.
Posted by: bmurray | April 4, 2006 9:28 PM
Why do we worry so much about getting HUMAN life on other planets? I imagine that getting life with mitochondria or something of that nature would be more easily achived and would still represent significant portions of our genetic identities (compared to, say, utterly alien life). It would take current technology and enough support to send a couple thousand probes in calculated directions in order to be successful. We could even write a bible! Who gets dibs on Genisis?
Posted by: Mike Fox | April 4, 2006 9:29 PM
Ahh, politics! One of these areas with more faith than facts, where we all make fools of ourselves. ;-)
"Let's assume that human beings are the most important, most precious, most essential species on the entire planet--heck, the entire Universe."
Humans aren't fundamentally but qualitatively different. It would be quite another loss if humans goes extinct. Our qualitatively different culture (compared to chimps, for example) would go too. I mourn this loss on this principle, even though I know that there will probably eventually be new such cultures too.
"If we were in a sustainable balance with our fellow species, we would not be seeing these ongoing and irreversible losses."
I prefer to think of it as each species or ecology is fundamentally as individual as much as each human is. So I mourn every loss on this principle, even though I know that there will eventually be new births too.
Having said that, how do we balance this conflict?
Looking at resources:
Obviously, prioritising humans will initially mean more specie losses but it should level off when population stabilises. Todays extinction rates are scary though. And we will have a poorer genetic diversity indefinitely.
Technology and economy have a tendency to replace scarce (pricey) resources with new ones. When the population level stabilises, there should be no problems. Projected population levels are scary though.
Looking at humanity:
Democracy and free trade seems to "maximize the health and happiness of the human race" by looking at statistics. It minimises conflicts, poverty and population replacement rates, of the known alternatives. Which is why population levels have started to look like they will stabilise. Todays poverty are scary though.
But there are things here I'm (even more :-) naive about. Does markets need interventional reboots from time to time? (To avoid 'Microsofts', or people forever stuck in low income.) How can an assumption of exponential growth (interest rates) be sustained when population growth stabilises? (Effectivity enhancements may presumably only do so much.) Can we hurt markets with small taxes to try to make special efforts to alleviate poverty and sickness, or is *any* such effort selfdefeating?
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | April 4, 2006 9:44 PM
We currently use monocultures for the vast majority of our food crops. We use chemical fertilizers to replace the nitrogen and other nutrients our farming removes from the soil, which then leak into groundwater and choke wetlands with explosive algae growth. We use massive amounts of pesticides that kill off beneficial insects (honeybee populations alone have been decreasing dramatically in the last decade, and they're vital to pollination of many of our crops) and that have been linked to brain damage in humans, Parkinson's Disease as an example.
Posted by: Caledonian | April 4, 2006 9:51 PM
"Evacuating the Earth is not necessarily out of the question for a sufficiently large civilization using the resources of several other solar systems for the project; the fact that it can't be done using only resources *on* the Earth is not the same as saying it can't be done at all."
Ok, lets tackle this problem.
First, we need something to hold all the people. Billions of people - this thing has to be really, really big.
Then we need to worry about supplies - food, water, air. It would be hard to pack it all... probably have to come up with some kind of system to regenerate waste into consumables.
So - we need something really really huge floating in space with a built-in system for recycling life-support resources.
man, if we only had one of those, we'd be all set!
Posted by: craig | April 4, 2006 10:06 PM
Bravo, PZ. Bravo.
Posted by: Tolana | April 4, 2006 10:09 PM
Craig I think I love you.
Posted by: bmurray | April 4, 2006 10:22 PM
As a geology guy I have mixed feelings about change. Everything interesting I have learned about our little planet occured though dramatic change. The first disastrous change ocurred during the archean when plant life produced enough oxygen in the atmosphere to evolve higher metabolic lifeforms, that ate them.
Basically all sedintary lifeforms live in the're own poop. We do too, even though we would not consider ourselves sedintary, we live in our poop! History shows two options: poison ourselves, or create some higher lifeform that loves our poop and eats us.
Although we think we are supremely powerfull, we are not. We cannot destroy the earth, all we can do is change it. Extreme extinction events are common in earths history. Almost total lifeform population extinctions have happened repeatedly, the last one at the K/T boundary but several smaller ones have happened since. Each time higer lifeforms have taken over.
We are now in a period where the extinction rate is similar to the K/T boundary. We are in a period of rapid change. We are lucky to be in a position to witness part of it, all of us. We are not intelligent enough to stop it. Maybe we can document it in a way so that those that follow us can. They will be more intelligent than us!
Posted by: Dennis | April 4, 2006 10:24 PM
there's nothing like a christian, a self-described "god lover", thumbing his/her nose AT GOD by destroying god's creation. yeah, i want to hang out for all eternity with Those People.
Not.
Posted by: GrrlScientist | April 4, 2006 10:48 PM
Don't worry. You and me are going to be burning in hell with EO Wilson and Rachel Carson.
Posted by: PZ Myers | April 4, 2006 10:55 PM
PZ assumes to know what will make future generations the most happy. Could the 1st century population know what would make us happy today? They'd have no clue. What made them happy is totally different than what makes us happy today. Do you think there is some unchanging, universal law of happiness that applies to everyone regardless?
Posted by: Lurker | April 4, 2006 10:57 PM
Since I've already made a fool of myself in this question, I will append to the list of uncertainties.
I sort of agree with Caledonian and Dennis. Even though population and resources may be less of a problem soon, it's not certain that the system of our culture and Earth is approaching some sort of attractor. (If it is, I bet it's a strange one. :-)
Looking at risks:
Caledonian mentions "tragedy of the commons" mechanisms for risks (as also Pianka has pointed out). Risks are a different concern for stability than outright unstabilising forces, but they could be minimised.
There is the "singularity" scenario, that may unbalance resource demands indefinitely when passing it. It's hard to classify, but I will put it down in the risk category here.
Conversely, there is also the "senescence" scenario, that may mean high extinction risk due to the stagnation.
Both singularity and senescence will mean "all eggs in one basket". It may happen anyway, since the window of opportunity for space travel is said to be short. (People will eventually lose interest.)
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | April 4, 2006 11:03 PM
Not being sick or hungry or dead is a good start.
Posted by: PZ Myers | April 4, 2006 11:05 PM
Not being sick or hungry or dead is a good start.
I dunno... have you ever met an unhappy dead person?
Posted by: craig | April 4, 2006 11:09 PM
Do you think there is some unchanging, universal law of happiness that applies to everyone regardless?
Maslow's Pyramid is a pretty good qualitative description. Of course, as you observe, there's a lot more individual variation at the top of the pyramid, but if you mess with the lower levels, it pretty much causes unhappiness to anyone missing out on those factors.
Posted by: RavenT | April 4, 2006 11:09 PM
I'm confused.
Mr Meyers, just the other day you had me convinced that yeast was the only life form worthy of preservation.
Posted by: llewelly | April 4, 2006 11:52 PM
I meant, 'Mr. Myers' . Apologies for the mispelling.
Posted by: llewelly | April 4, 2006 11:53 PM
PZ sayz:
In theory it's a good start. However there are plenty of healthy and never-hungry people walking around this world without a lot of happiness in their lives. Some are filthy rich too. Can't imagine anything being done about death.
If we can't solve people's happiness problems today, what hope do we have in solving them tomorrow unless we know what it is that makes people happy in the long-term?
Posted by: Lurker | April 5, 2006 12:23 AM
Sorry if someone said this already. I'm too lazy to bother reading the other posts at this time of night.
But to me, preserving a diversity of species is comparable to perserving, say, the works of Shakespere (or whatever literary treasure you prefer). Sure, it's not necessary for survival or anything. But who would want to exist in a world without great literature? What would we be robbing our grandchildren of?
Posted by: plucky punk | April 5, 2006 12:54 AM
Great! Let's metastasize Mars!!!
Posted by: natural cynic | April 5, 2006 4:00 AM
I don't understand what you're getting at, Lurker. Are you saying that there's no point to trying to make anyone happy? Are you saying that because we don't know completely accurately what will make future generations happy, we should just go ahead and erode the soil, burn the rain-forests, exterminate all the species?
In any case, after several thousand years of civilisation, philosophy, story-telling and even religion, I think we do have a fairly good grip on what makes H. sapiens happy. The problem is more down to ignoring the needs of others or the needs of future selves for marginal gains in short-term personal gratification.
Posted by: NelC | April 5, 2006 6:09 AM
Rocky wrote:
...and for those Christians who say "The sooner, the better!" it's the Velocirapture...
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | April 5, 2006 7:02 AM
So umm, can we have a carbon tax and better fishery management now please? Sorry to be all practical and mundane but there are things we can definately do to prevent a lot of the damage that we do to the air and the oceans and they aren't that expensive. We can prevent a lot of the damage that we do at the cost of only reducing the rate at which we grow richer.
Now I realise that spending a couple of decades just to stop things getting worse might not please some people, but it might be the best we can hope for realistically. Stopping most of the damage we do to the environment may cost us a thirty percent reduction in the rate that the first world gets richer. It's not that much to ask for and even then most of the cost is in the first few decades, but for some reason we seem to have a lot of people who appear to have given up and think nothing can be done and a few hyperenthusiastic people who seem convinced that nothing needs to be done.
There are things we can do and they are not that expensive or difficult. They just have to be done.
Posted by: Ronald Brak | April 5, 2006 7:11 AM
Shorter version of PZ's argument:
No species is an island, entire of itself
every species is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any species loss diminishes me, because I am involved in this planet
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for us.
Posted by: NJ | April 5, 2006 7:36 AM
I think education, and low mortality rate for children, non-fundamentalist outlook (i.e., every sperm is not sacred), equality (in terms of decision making) of women are the things that go into smaller families.
But population growth will simply determine the magnitude of our crisis. Even if the population growth was zero from today onwards, sustaining 6 billion people who aspire to a current American lifestyle is unsustainable for the earth with the current level of technology. There simply isn't enough arable land to produce that much cattle feed for that many burgers. So something has to change. I hope it is not that a major portion of humanity is permanently condemned to poverty. Like it or not, we are on a technological treadmill, and have to hope that our ingenuity outpaces our problems.
Posted by: Arun | April 5, 2006 7:41 AM
... have you ever met an unhappy dead person?
Well, they sure don't complain as much as the living do, and skulls look like they have a permanent ear to ear grin.
Posted by: Norman Doering | April 5, 2006 8:00 AM
Bravo! on the notion of enlightened self-interest for our species, but I suggest one little change. 'Environmental wackos' aren't trained in the scientists or even in rational thinking. These are the people who will happily sign a petition against 'di-hydrogen monoxide' because it has been found in our lakes and streams, and even in mother's milk!
So I'm not inclined to listen to them, but I do listen to actual scientists on environmental questions that relate to their fields. Would that our legislators and citizenry do the same.
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | April 5, 2006 8:09 AM
We're not on a treadmill.
We're on a hamster wheel.
Clearly, if we're having trouble getting somewhere on our wheel, all we need to do is walk faster.
Posted by: Caledonian | April 5, 2006 8:19 AM
If we can't solve people's happiness problems today, what hope do we have in solving them tomorrow unless we know what it is that makes people happy in the long-term? (Lurker)
Shorter lurker: let's not do anything because it might not work for everyone.
In the long term we are all dead and our happiness is no longer an issue. But how about '42'? It's the meaning of Life, Universe and Everything. Now that we know it, can we do something useful and/or fun?
Posted by: another lurker | April 5, 2006 8:21 AM
http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/cbio/cancod.html
Thus, the ocean's output is limited. With technology, we might be able to have the ocean produce more cod. But otherwise, assuming that the Newfoundland fisheries eventually revive, there is only a quarter million tons per year of Newfoundland cod available for the world, whether its population is 300 million or 6 billion.
Posted by: Arun | April 5, 2006 8:35 AM
And there's another way for technology to help us step out of the hamster wheel. If we can grow beer and cheese in vats, why not in-vitro meat too?
Posted by: zoeific | April 5, 2006 9:18 AM
Do you realize that pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and overfishing the oceans and deforesting the tropics is going to reduce the number of people who can live here in peace and prosperity?
How do you know that global warming will reduce the number of people who can live on Earth? Seems to me that the United States and Europe are much more inhabitable these days, now that they are not covered in glaciers. If global warming continues for a few hundred years, we might see people being able to live in the vast uninhabited regions of Canada and Siberia. Right?
Posted by: Niels Jackson | April 5, 2006 9:59 AM
Malthus was discredited in my view because he fell into the dangers of using asymptotic notation. This is a pitfall the CS people may find familiar. Population is growing as O(e^x) and resources as O(n^k) for some k. What didn't work with the argument were those pesky constants, whence in my view it is just a matter of time before they become insignificant. I think we're just about at the point of crossover on a lot of things, especially if the standard is the US.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | April 5, 2006 10:03 AM
Niels, it seems likely that global warming will disrupt the Gulf Stream, actually reducing the temperature of my bit of Europe by a lot more than general global warming will increase it. This will reduce the habitability of the UK and the productivity of its farmlands. Sure, people will continue to live here, but it won't be at the same level of prosperity.
Posted by: NelC | April 5, 2006 10:43 AM
If global warming conti