Is more technology the answer?

[coberst]

Is more technology the answer?

Technology is a positive feed back system. When the output of the system increases the system goes at a higher rate. There is no equilibrium in a positive feedback system. Capitalism is such a system.

In a negative feed back system when the output increases the system goes at a slower pace or turns off completely, like the thermostatically controlled home heating furnace. Such a system seeks and maintains equilibrium. Our body is such a system.

As our world population continues to increase we (humanity) face a big question: How will we feed everybody? Until lately, India thought that they had found the answer for creating cheap food for their hundreds of millions.

“Farmers in the state of Punjab abandoned traditional farming methods in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the national program called the "Green Revolution," backed by advisers from the U.S. and other countries.

Indian farmers started growing crops the American way — with chemicals, high-yield seeds and irrigation.

Since then, India has gone from importing grain like a beggar, to often exporting it.

But studies show the Green Revolution is heading for collapse.”

When he Green Revolution was launched 40 years ago framers began to grow only high-yield crops instead of their traditional crops. The new crops required more water than the old crops so that farmers were required to create new wells. These new wells caused the ground water level to fall and the declining level caused the water to become more salty than before. These new wells required better and more expensive pumps, which led to indebtedness by the farmers.

This led to a problem similar to the problem we in the US have recently experienced, i.e. India’s Wall Street equivalent grew fat and happy and farmers accumulated debts that they could not pay. This created a financial “quicksand”.

The new crops demanded much more from the soil and the water wells pumped more salty water because of lowered ground water and the combination destroyed the soil.

During the good years the farmers increased their standard of living and built new homes for their families, thus adding more debt.

"It's like a disease that is catching on in the world," says Suba, "building a life that is like a house of cards."

"The state and farmers are now faced with a crisis…India's population is growing faster than any country on Earth, and domestic food production is vital.

But the commission's director, G.S. Kalkat, says Punjab's farmers are committing ecological and economic "suicide”… Kalkat says only one thing can save Punjab: India has to launch a brand new Green Revolution. But he says this one has to be sustainable.

The problem is, nobody has yet perfected a farming system that produces high yields, makes a good living for farm families, protects and enhances the environment — and still produces good, affordable food.”

India's Farming 'Revolution' Heading For Collapse

'Green Revolution' Trapping India's Farmers In Debt : NPR

[Clodhopper]

Agree. We're in trouble. Also worth noting that these high yields require petrochemical-based fertilisers.

I would say technology could help, but technology is just a tool, and you need the right tool for the job. What is the right technology?

[spot]

Clodhopper;1226668 wrote: I would say technology could help, but technology is just a tool, and you need the right tool for the job. What is the right technology?


From the current position nothing short of apocalyptic plague will fix matters and if it leaves one survivor in a thousand that's still more people than the planet or our survival as a civilised species needs until we spread out and populate the galaxy. Until we begin to thrive permanently off-world we're all in dire trouble. Technology may be just a tool but it's the right one in the only respect that matters.

[Clodhopper]

From the current position nothing short of apocalyptic plague will fix matters and if it leaves one survivor in a thousand that's still more people than the planet or our survival as a civilised species needs until we spread out and populate the galaxy. Until we begin to thrive permanently off-world we're all in dire trouble. Technology may be just a tool but it's the right one in the only respect that matters.


That is very much what I was afraid of. We won't be populating the galaxy in our lifetimes, nor, unless there are some major breakthroughs, in our grandchildren's lifetimes.

Which leaves us facing....I don't even want to say it....

[Bill Sikes]

Clodhopper;1226674 wrote: That is very much what I was afraid of. We won't be populating the galaxy in our lifetimes

Which leaves us facing....I don't even want to say it....


Population control, and/or

Starvation, and/or

War.

[coberst]

According to current population forecasts, population aging in the first half of this century should exceed that of the second half of the 20th century. For the world as a whole, the elderly will grow from 6.9% of the population in 2000 to a projected 19.3% in 2050 (Table 1). In other words, the world average should then be higher than the current world record

Population Aging

[Clodhopper]

Bill: Sorry - should have got back to you before this...

Only things I think you missed were Plague and Death. You got the other two horsemen.

coberst: Not sure what you are getting at with the aging population thing. I fear very much that the older segments of population will make up the earliest stacks of corpses.

[coberst]

Clodhopper;1228045 wrote:

coberst: Not sure what you are getting at with the aging population thing. I fear very much that the older segments of population will make up the earliest stacks of corpses.


In the United States 16% of GDP goes to health care. 50% of the health care dollar is spent on the elderly.

[spot]

coberst;1228091 wrote: In the United States 16% of GDP goes to health care. 50% of the health care dollar is spent on the elderly.
And despite that 16% of GDP,

• The percentage of employees with an annual deductible greater than $1,000 increased from 1% to 18% between 2000 and 2008.Some 47 million (out of a population of over 300 million) are estimated to be without insurance.On top of that, 25 million Americans are also deemed "under-insured" - their coverage is inadequate for their needs.When someone without insurance (or with inadequate cover) falls ill, they are obliged to pay their medical costs out of their own pocket.Half of all personal bankruptcies in the US are at least partially the result of medical expenses.
  What it sounds like to me is that the US simply can't afford any system which provides universal health care access. Tough titty, shame and all that but you don't have the wherewithal as a nation.
  
  Were anyone to ask my opinion as to why that's the case I'd put it down to the overhead of insurance company profits and private hospital profits, neither of which the US is going to circumvent.
  
  I used BBC NEWS | Americas | Q&A: US healthcare reform as my source for figures and bullet points. I hope it's considered an acceptable unbiased article.

[luciferjohn]

no technology will destroy us.