Re: Bicyclist decapitated

On 4/28/2024 1:42 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 15:49:45 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
 

My comment was in reply to your, "They will probably try to
sell us things that are eventually found to be a scam." We
have a lot of those here!

 Yep.  Whenever I go somewhere on vacation, that's what the locals do
to the tourists.
 

Food is the least likely 'catastrophic' problem. World grain
production rises every year on less land with less labor.
Human innovation rocks.
>
Regarding overpopulation, the Cassandras haven't been so
great on that either. All advanced countries suffer
declining birth rates, many including USA below replacement.
Regarding extreme solutions to 'impending doom', look at the
results of Mao's One Child policy which has turned out very
badly.

 Rather write a long rant on the topic, I think you'll find this video
more digestible.
"The World Population Crisis NO ONE Sees Coming"
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk5KoWUwz6Q>  (21:52)
The part on the changing demographics is rather interesting.  Note
that the author of the video made no attempt to predict the future or
even propose a short term trend.  When there were benefits to having
many children, birth rate and fertility increase.  When the benefits
are less valuable or useful, as is currently the situation, birth rate
and fertility decrease.  What happens when the aliens arrive is
unknown.  If they are hostile, increasing the birth rate is what
traditionally is used to build a large army to fight the aliens.  If
they are friendly and help solve our problems, people might think that
it's a wonderful world and a great time to have kids.  Or, they might
decide to have a good time and not want to deal with difficulties of
raising kids.  Toss a coin on that one.
 Chairman Mao's one child policy was a resounding success, but not in
the manner initially intended.  What it actually did was produce a
radical change in China's economic policies and opened China to trade,
commerce and a restricted form of private enterprise.  It didn't
change China's political system in the slightest.  The result was a
spectacular increase in the standard of living.  The birth rate is now
decreasing because the population have found better things to do than
raise large families.  It took a while longer than Mao would have
predicted, but I think if he were alive today, he would be proud of
what he indirectly accomplished.
  

Thanks to you I was thinking of extraterrestrials on a long drive here early today.
IMHO it's more likely than not that there is other life beyond Earth. But, given the immense distances, highly unlikely that any two civilizations capable of leaving their own planet would ever encounter one another.
Add in the time constraint and it's virtually impossible. By time constraint, I'm thinking of civilization durability over galactic time periods. If one posits a couple of very successful life forms which each develop over say 50,000 years in different parts of this or another galaxy or galaxies, it's unlikely they would be contemporaries. This is again on top of the geography problem, so multiplying probabilities you start to approach zero here.
And a further thought- One of my pet peeves is the comment in NASA press releases about exoplanets which 'could support life'. pfffft, how parochial and narrow minded.  There's no reason to limit a 'life form' to compatibility with human respiration of our atmosphere, our operating temperature range or more importantly our chemistry. It's not unreasonable to posit an utterly different basis for life outside of carbon chemistry.
All random thoughts above are fact-free, non disprovable and one man's opinion.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971