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O'Neil Poree

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The Coming Unavoidable Population Bottleneck

In the last two centuries the world's nations have, in an order closely related to their relative technical modernity, one after another, gradually become effectively ungovernable.
Example: the world's governments, collectively and individually, cannot control catastrophic global warming. This claim can be elaborated upon in subsequent discussions.
The many other examples, I could quote , including the last century'd progressions of increasingly large-scale wars, with their increasingly devastating weapons of mass destruction, then imply that our future guarantees the worst effects of the symbolic "Horsemen of the Apocalypse" We cannot avoid both widespread localized starvations, multiple local genocides, and huge war casualties, all on a sufficiently large scale to reduce world population by several factors of ten.
The raw material to prove those contentions is already scattered throughout these conversations, and I hope their various authors will respect each others discussions, and append their applications to this conversation.

Topics: climate change droughts eco-damage genocide global hunger global peace global warming nuclear war world religions
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  • O'Neil Poree

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    Sep 25 2012: The essence of all social activity that actually comes to pass is group behaviors. That's where any possible solutions lie. The human dilemna is like the one medical personnel face constantly: "Do no harm1"

  • O'Neil Poree

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    Sep 25 2012: My feeling about solutions begins with moral designs that could deal with the universal motif in human bargaining process: "TIT-FOR-TAT".This may sound too far from immediate application, until you allow that I am attacking the reprehensible role that profit-making and money-distributing groups, from international corporations to governmental ruling party financial grants, buy off reforming corrections and deny corrective processes. This business, e.g., lobbying, is only bribery by a euphemistic name. An immediate example: FRACKING, which adds catastrophically to global warming in several different ways, and also destroys the vital acquifers wherever it is conducted.Ruling groups negotiate entirely by such tradeoffing. Capitalism is the artificial monetized formalization of it. How to moralize capitalism is one of the hardest problems humanity has yet to face squarely. Many alternatives have been invented, some of them then corrupted later on by teansformation into genocidal dictatorships (even the Communists were eventually apologetic about their murderous Stalin).
    Solutions, if any, are out there in our collective intelligence. TED's task is to enlist that intelligence, in uncovering a feasible solution, and fast! The brink is close, and getting closer.

  • Solidus Sharp

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    Sep 25 2012: make your best solution design an execution plan see if you make an impact ?

    • O'Neil Poree

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      Sep 25 2012: Solutions very well may not exist.
      If they do, they lie out there in the collective intelligence. TED's task, here, is to enlist that resource, and evoke any possible solution. The risk, as always, is the same that all medical personnel face constantly: "To do no harm!!"
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