The Future Is Here

[DesertRatt]

Chief is so right - the bugs are being killed faster than the humans. Look at the bee die off. In the 70s and 80s driving thru midwest plains would have the windshield obliterated with bugs. Last summer we drove through 1000 miles of plains and I don't think we had ONE BUG on the windshield!

The economics are very dang simple: UltraProcessed food, made from waste products and a few dozen chemical additives, have a massive cost advantage over any real food that can be cultivated, prepared, or grown. As long as no one drops dead the minute they consume UltraProcessed foods, it's all good and ready to go.

 

[GChief]

Already happening; How Cricket Farming Works

That is why I mentioned farming

My daughters used to send me all kinds of flavored bugs for snacks while I was on deployments. The oldest started doing it in 1995

 

[GChief]

As long as no one drops dead the minute they consume UltraProcessed foods, it's all good and ready to go.

And don't forget they are easy, save time and ate good for us.

People even still think a Cheerio breakfast is good for our hearts... we are such idiots

 

[ta240]

And don't forget they are easy, save time and for us.

People even still think a Cheerio breakfast is good for our hearts... we are such idiots

They've been convinced that if it weren't true the company couldn't say it. The same way we assume someone official is checking the places where we eat to make sure they are clean. We should be able to count on people in charge being on our side but we can't.

 

[DesertRatt]

They've been convinced that if it weren't true the company couldn't say it. The same way we assume someone official is checking the places where we eat to make sure they are clean. We should be able to count on people in charge being on our side but we can't.

I refer to that as the "overly complex society" problem. Just consider how insanely complex living has become in say, the last 200 years. Vast swaths of the population have no access to land, and must place 100% faith in a super long chain of complex business, technology, and authoritative institutions that end at your grocery store.

 

[GChief]

I am off to my swamp to hug a tree

 

[SoCal Sam]

Life expectancy is a relative measure in any society for any species. First of all, it is usually stated as an average - which can provide a misleading picture. No doubt both fertility and infant mortality were higher than contemporary life, and that wildly skews the average. Then we have to wonder if 50 good years might be better than 80 mediocre years. Within the current life expectancy stats are massive amounts of chronic illness, depression, and dissatisfactions of all sorts.

Contemporary souls must also wonder: Is spending your life working as "employees" on crap we don't have a relationship with, for people we don't know, really LIVING? We are in a highly conceptualized life - unlike say, the beaver, the lion, the eagle - our animal brethren. Conceptualized in a certain way that from a distance (say, Mars) would look like a form of slavery.

I agree that we are not going back to the Stone Age voluntarily. The currently stock of humans wouldn't last a week in Nature. Not physically, or mentally adept. But, the species in it's current form is definitely doomed to extinction, now that humans can't even identify real food from toxins. Who knows - -20 generations until zero hour? The species can't survive with a 60% rate of cancer, depression, autism, diabetes, infertility, etc.

It's better to be alive than be unalive. That is the flaw in this line of reasoning. Rhetorical questions do not make an argument.

 

[SoCal Sam]

I refer to that as the "overly complex society" problem. Just consider how insanely complex living has become in say, the last 200 years. Vast swaths of the population have no access to land, and must place 100% faith in a super long chain of complex business, technology, and authoritative institutions that end at your grocery store.

Null result sheds light on the fallacy of this reasoning. Without social organization, property protection, technical innovation, and effective government, the result is not a noble eden. The result is chaos. And yes, I have 100% faith in the progress humanity has made. I am well beyond your 50 good years because of the industrial revolution. Is not that proof enough? It is for me.

 

[onwardjames]

It's better to be alive than be unalive. That is the flaw in this line of reasoning. Rhetorical questions do not make an argument.

No, but both my in-laws, as well as my mother, are all 77-80 years old, all 3 have cognitive decline (two have different types of dementia) and their quality of life is horrid from working in factories and poor nutrition, poor life habits. Is this their fault? Well, sure. Is it better that they're alive than dead? Well, I suppose.
To use your own logic, though, rhetorical questions do not make an argument.

I'm not sure that the focus of living should be length, though. I think quality has to matter.

I am well beyond your 50 good years because of the industrial revolution. Is not that proof enough? It is for me.

The Industrial Revolution is something we all can agree has elevated mankind, sure. 100% correct.

The question is, what happens when that revolution morphs into the system we have today?

 

[onwardjames]

Be born. Get forced indoctrination at an institution called "school" for a career that likely no longer exists.

Work tirelessly to make other people rich, being sure to thank your overlords for the medicines that prop up your health that suffers from nearly indigestible foodstuffs, the stress of "modern society". Do this for 50 years. Have a few years where you finally get to do something you like......maybe....but now you're of no use to the economy (that amorphous, gobbling monster) and your body hurts, so you cuddle up and wait until the PROFESSIONAL ASSET LIQUIDATORS known as nursing homes arrive to cart off all your hard-won belongings, leaving not a single crumb for progeny, friends, family.


This is what I, a man of 53, see. Your vantage and mine are both valid, but clearly coming from different vistas. I see your point. Can you see mine?

 

[onwardjames]

Without social organization, property protection, technical innovation, and effective government,

I love this sentence, and yes, you're right.

However, 2 of the 4 are outright fails (what they should be vs what they are). 2 and 4 we are lacking, somewhat.

But your point is correct, we need these things.

 

[egellings]

Grow cow, pig & chicken muscle cells in a lab and skip the animal altogether.

 

[DesertRatt]

It's better to be alive than be unalive.

Maybe. I won't know for sure until I see what dead is like.

 

[GChief]

And the worms ate into his brain

 

[DesertRatt]

Null result sheds light on the fallacy of this reasoning. Without social organization, property protection, technical innovation, and effective government, the result is not a noble eden. The result is chaos. And yes, I have 100% faith in the progress humanity has made. I am well beyond your 50 good years because of the industrial revolution. Is not that proof enough? It is for me.

-social organization
-technical innovation
-effective government

Humans are just another species in the animal kingdom created by Nature. One of about 1.5 million species. It is very common for other animals to have "social organization" that often includes hierarchies and privilege that in a stretch could be called governance, or government. Those attributes are well within the bounds then of Nature. Technology of the type humans are employing is unique in the animal kingdom. It is a repudiation and rejection of Nature - a war against Nature. From my vantage point it looks like it is losing that war.

If technology was a benefit to the human species, then each generation of humans would be healthier, stronger, smarter, and freer. That's not what the evidence suggests is happening. Humans are getting sicker, weaker, less fertile, less physically capable, and less free, but living longer by virtue of pharmaceutical life rafts.

The above is just MY OBSERVATION of Nature and other animals. I'm not trying to win a court case, argument, or create a scientific thesis.

 

[DesertRatt]

I think much of contemporary humanity is pretending they are NOT part of Nature, not any part of the animal kingdom, not related to the crow, the zebra, the field mouse. I think they believe what they see on Television means they are not animals at all! They arrived here from some Cosmic Factory in space that churns out "people-gadgets, televisions, computers, and cars."

 

[whoaru99]

Surströmming.

 

[init4fun]

No matter how he tried, he could not break free

And the worms ate into his brain

 

[SoCal Sam]

-social organization
-technical innovation
-effective government

Humans are just another species in the animal kingdom created by Nature. One of about 1.5 million species. It is very common for other animals to have "social organization" that often includes hierarchies and privilege that in a stretch could be called governance, or government. Those attributes are well within the bounds then of Nature. Technology of the type humans are employing is unique in the animal kingdom. It is a repudiation and rejection of Nature - a war against Nature. From my vantage point it looks like it is losing that war.

If technology was a benefit to the human species, then each generation of humans would be healthier, stronger, smarter, and freer. That's not what the evidence suggests is happening. Humans are getting sicker, weaker, less fertile, less physically capable, and less free, but living longer by virtue of pharmaceutical life rafts.

The above is just MY OBSERVATION of Nature and other animals. I'm not trying to win a court case, argument, or create a scientific thesis.

OK then. Accept 25 year lifespan. Accept childhood demise. This was the norm less than 200 years ago. Nope, not buying your pessimism. You are as much a beneficiary of progress as I am and yet I chose to embrace success.

 

[DesertRatt]

Accept 25 year lifespan ,,,,,,This was the norm less than 200 years ago.

Here are the ages of key Founding Fathers at death:

• John Adams: 90
• Benjamin Franklin: 84
• Thomas Jefferson: 83
• James Madison: 85
• James Monroe: 73
• George Washington: 67