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Argg my comment just got wiped. See, many of us have this utopian vision of society, where everything works and everyone is happy. Many of the world’s greatest dictators have had this same idea, such as Hitler and Pol Pot. It doesn’t work. Period. You suggest the idea of proper society. Umm, care to elaborate? If its something like: We should be self-sustaining and not mess with the eco-system, it’s not going to happen. We weren’t designed to care. Nature is set-up so that animals try to grow and prosper as fast as we can, and only by a system of checks and balances does it all work out (food chain, anyone?). But somehow, humans have escaped the system and conquered their checks and balances. For a juicy read, check out Agent Smith’s monologue in The Matrix talking about the human plague. So what do I suggest? Nothing

Life on Earth was never meant to be perfect, because in perfection there is nothing left to change. Back when there were just single cell organisms, they evolved over time to be well adapted to the climate, not perfectly adaped, mind you, but well enough adapted so they could get by. If that race of cells adapted perfectly, where every funtion was presicely tuned to that environment, they would eventually be screwed, because at some point that precice environment would change. Volcanos erupt, icecaps melt, that is what Earth does. When an environment does change, say some extra Argon enters the atmosphere, a species will adapt to that. The majority of the species will die out, but a select group, will, by some coincidence, be able to handle it, and those will be the ones that reproduce. Evolution relies on a changing environment to keep life on Earth, well, alive.

I’m not sure if the human race is indeed going into a downward spiral, but I have some slightly different thoughts on the subject. We have reached a point in our society where we really don’t have to try very hard at all to get everything we need. Food and shelter can be earned easily with an incredibly second-rate job, so everyone is just earning what they need to live, and then spending the rest of their time entertaining themselves in useless ways. Our society is slowing down it’s incredible forward movement that it has had the last few hundred years. I know, you guys all think I haven’t expirenced any major changes just because I’ve only lived a decade and a half, but look around you. People don’t care about scientific achievement anymore, they don’t care about advancing our political system any further, all they care about is who’s next to get voted off “American Idol”
So you guys realize that leaves us. That leaves the ones who have far too much ambition to sit around while our non-renewable recources are getting sucked up, and more and more people are brooding creating a population that this world can only hold for who knows how long? That leaves us, to do maybe a little bit more than our society expects us to do. That’s the only way we’re gonna make any headway here!
This is perhaps one of the reasons why so many politicians suck these days, is because they are the leaders of a country that, really, has everything it darn well needs. Throw some poverty in there, a little famine, that’s what is gonna get this country moving! But I guess if politions started making it a point to mess up the country a little for the next guy to improve, we wouldn’t get anywhere, either. But think of how much all the third world countrys who started last century with bupkiss are still improving today. We’ve reached our limit, and I think most people agree that it’s good enough for them!!!

So how do we fix this problem? What if we take half the farms in the U.S. and burned ‘em? Then all of a sudden, the value of food goes way, way up! Suddenly, people would be putting a lot more effort into their jobs, just so they can feed their families. All I can say is that if people won’t do their best on their own, then I think we’re gonna half to provoke them a little. I have no intention spending my life doing something that will be completely forgotten when I’m gone. That’s what picking a career is, right? It’s picking what part of you you’re going to leave behind for after you die. Make a difference, people! That’s the only way our country will continue to advance.

Okay, I’ve gone on long enough. That kinda answer’s superdave’s post as well, I guess. Can anyone think of a better way to get people motivated than to burn half the food in the U.S.?

Well well, i see we have the young savior of the universe in our midst… Basically you’re saying our race has over-populated Earth? While I somewhat agree, I don’t believe killing people is the solution. So if, for instance, I giant tsunami such as the recent south Asia one were to occur on the California coast, we’d all be just about dead. And while our technology may be better, our houses sturdier, our infrastructure stronger, nature can still render us defenseless.
Moving on, I think Ian’s idea of motivating the bored is a big fat pile of rhino dung. I think before you even think about anything like that, you should walk around in other peoples shoes (no Sean, not literally) and see how they would like being starved etc. So my much more passive solution: Move to Iceland. Even better, move to Mars. I mean, Iceland is where its at. They’ve got hydrogen cars already, they don’t pick on anyone, they be good :-p . Even if we did move to iceland, it wouldn’t work. Humans, like all animals, I hardwired not to care about overpopulation (checks and balances again), or at least in their immediately family. And thats the trouble. And maybe a few of us see it as a problem, but the general public wants to have sex and reproduce…and there’s no sense stopping them. So anyway, I declare this post full of baloney. Visions of Utopia are just as invalid as Visions of Eating your own head…

I feel that instead of wasting all those resources just because we have enough, we should give them to countries that don’t have enough and never will have enough. Some countries just don’t have access to what we have, or even close to what we have. Just because the US landed in a very profitable area doesn’t mean that we should destroy part of it just to continue getting further on, when other countries actually need food. We should do something with the extras, something productive. There is always more to be done. Nothing is finished. We may not progress any further. But did the people 232 years ago think that they weren’t going to get any further too? They thought that they were at the end? It seems that we might just think that, and we’re actually just at the beginning.

Sam

Interesting fact: Iceland is primarily powered by geothermal energy, meaning they drill wells and get water heated from the hot magma inside the earth. Of course, geothermal energy only works really well in Iceland, since it’s part of the mid-atlantic ridge.

Sam, giving to less fortunate countries is an excellent idea. That’s just the kind of thinking I was looking for. See, my destroying of resources isn’t about killing off the weak, we’ll get into that in a later topic :-), but it’s about making people try harder to get the necesities so that we can move forward. That’s how the system we designed works, everyone does what they selected as their “career,” and then the people who’s career is providing these necessities provide for everyone in excange for what they’ve done, in the form of money. And I’m not saying progression has stopped, all I’m saying is that it seems we are progressing much more slowly than we were only a few decades ago. And it’s simply because we no longer have to do more than lift a finger to have everything we need. We need more overachievers!

Fitting quote:
“Everything that can be invented has been invented”
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner,
U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

You guys should so read the book, I have it if anyone wants to borrow it. Anyways, I agree that we should be sharing materials with places that need it. HOWEVER due to our money loving natures, how are we ever going to manage to get the owners of farms, these massive producers of food, to give away what could bring them profit. There is a section in Ishmael that says that we keeps seeing countries in need, so we produce more food for them, only their population grows so there are more starving people to feed. If you give more food to those in need, inevitably they will reproduce and there will just be more people to feed. And now im going in circles…

I see that we don’t tend to stick to the same idea that we start with. I would like to point out the original point I made in the post:

WE ARE GOING TO CRASH AND BURN PEOPLE! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

My vote: nothing.

We, I don’t think everyone will ever agree to do any one thing. So the probability of anything happening unless a corporate business gets involved is practically nil.

Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, it’s gonna be no problem for the farmers. ’cause while they are giving up half their produce, they can charge more than than twice as much for the remaining half. And can people boycott food? I think not. The point I’m making is saying just that we have to get rid of the food, and sam came up with the fine idea of giving it to someone else. But you are right, giving it to someone else does just expand their appetite, so I think I’ll just stick with my original idea of burning it all, thank you That’s how we’ll save our civilization.

Ian…your right it wouldn’t be any problem for the farmers, but if you were a farmer, would you want to just give up a large portion of your crop that could be making you a good profit. Farmer’s aren’t the richest people in the world you know… Plus, noone is going to raise prices unless everyone does, and let’s just say the general public won’t be too happy. There are too many food producers for everyone to raise prices…the instant people become unhappy, someones going to start selling at a great price comparatively…and there goes your system.

-Here’s an idea Let’s burn them all…sack all the farms…goodbye major agriculture. You say we need a challenge Ian- go somewhere where they don’t have all the conveniences we have, and then come back and tell me we need challenge

Now THAT would be the way to re-introduce my good friend natural selection into the modern world. That would probably kill of, what, about seven eighths of the population of the world in about a decade? Who would survive? Obviously the rich, they’d buy every last scrap of food left. And the goverment would obviously keep themselves well fed before they worry about the public. So I guess that leaves the farmers who grow enough to keep the surplus to feed thier families, and then everyone else is dead. Bye-bye, scientists. Bye-bye, educators. Bye-bye, everyone with less than a cool ten million in their bank accounts. I’m sure all the hit actors and singers and sports figures of today would survive. This is starting to sound less and less like a good idea…

See, half is where it’s at. Cause most middle-classmen would still be able to survive, they’d just have to work a lot harder. And then after a few generations, we’d have to do it again once the scars wear off of people. How ’bout every fifty years? That sounds about right, doesn’t it? Every fifty years we burn half the food in the U.S., and then pretty soon, other countries will see how well we’re doing, and they’ll start doing it too! This seems downright humane after Jackie’s idea.

Jackie’s thought “There is a section in Ishmael that says that we keeps seeing countries in need, so we produce more food for them, only their population grows so there are more starving people to feed.” reminded me of the quote “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”
Basically what I’m saying is that if we would stop FEEDING these countries and taught them to feed themselves instead, the people within them would see to what extent they could reproduce, and then they’d balance out their population with what their economy could afford.
Sorry for the run-on sentences and lateness of this message.

Thank you anonymous
I read most the comments and was confused as to why they were commenting on ishmael saying feed the poor countries when the book specifically says thats not the solution.
People must learn to survive on their own, being that all all survivability is practically taken away from the human race by this point. In nature that is.
I mean we have reality TV (survivor) where they are forced to actual live like we should be living. Fending for themselves. And we see this is a horid, hard experience. Sadening.