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Post by Fogg on Jul 22, 2022 21:59:48 GMT 12
Lots of threads of lots of inter-related hot topics so let’s bring them all together and take a more holistic view.
These are the 4 biggest macro-issues facing humankind in the next few decades that will define how the world changes:
1. Food supply stability
2. Water supply stability
3. Climate stability
4. Geo-political stability
50 years ago when there were only 2.5 billion people on this planet the experts said the world could not feed itself when the population reached double that figure i.e. 5 billion.
Until this year, thanks to tech & innovation we have been successfully feeding 8 billion. But this year 400,000 extra people will go seriously hungry because the calories of food supplied don’t meet the calories required by the population. Largely due to the war in Ukraine - which has caused rising fuel costs (with knock on effects on food manufacture & supply costs) plus the 20m tonnes of grain unable to be exported by Ukraine to the rest of the world due to Black Sea blockade.
What this highlights is that - yes we found a way to feed 8 billion people when we thought 5 billion was impossible - but it’s a very fragile system despite being amazing.
So what? Maybe you don’t care about all of this? That’s fine if you don’t.
But if you have children, you might. Because across all 4 of the macro measures outlined above, life will be much harder for them than it has been for us.
So how do we - as parents - help set up our children to cope with the totally different challenges that they will face? Because we can’t give them great advice based on our own experience - because we haven’t experienced anything like it before ourselves.
Not all at once…
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2022 22:31:41 GMT 12
Earth has the capacity to feed two Earth's worth of people without clearing another single acre of land.
We simply need to stop growing food to feed animals that we then consume.
NZ has enough farmland and green pastures to feed the population of the southern hemisphere.
But who wants to give up their weekend bbq or their glass of milk?
Additionally, adopting vegetarianism is the single biggest thing an individual can do to help reduce the effects of climate change.
There's 1 and 3 solved.
No 2 isn't an issue for NZ. But the solution for those countries where it is an issue is clean and abundant energy for desalination coupled with a waterpipe transport network.
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Post by Fogg on Jul 23, 2022 0:25:30 GMT 12
Over-simplified much 🙄
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2022 0:39:47 GMT 12
Stop wasting food.
Kill all pets
Eat the rich.
Problem solved
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2022 0:44:25 GMT 12
Why does the solution have to be complicated? |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 23, 2022 1:08:35 GMT 12
Because your simple solution will never work.
Simple really!
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Post by em on Jul 23, 2022 5:45:36 GMT 12
Live in a cheesy subdivisions , have polyester carpets and curtains , plastic kitchen and front doors . Fill garage with cheap Chinese shit from mitre 10 , nuke the place place with glyphosate , have lots of plastic wicker look alike outdoor furniture . Absolutely lose the plot during discussions on maybe doing the above things differently . Sorry that was more than 4 things
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Post by Cantab on Jul 23, 2022 7:48:45 GMT 12
So how do we - as parents - help set up our children to cope with the totally different challenges that they will face? Because we can’t give them great advice based on our own experience - because we haven’t experienced anything like it before ourselves.
Think back to the world our Parents faced, from their perspective, I don't think it was that much different for them.
In their time, and probably since the Industrial Revolution began, they probably saw much the same problems confronting them and their children, a world very different to the one they were bought up in.
What was their solution? Work hard, educate their children best they can, pass on what wisdom they could. People (children) have an amazing ability to solve problems and create novel solutions, have a little faith and don't stifle the creativity.
Watching an interview with Warren Buffett, he suggested the best way to prepare for any coming collapse or hard times is to maximise your personal income generating capacity by learning and developing new skills.
I guess the idea is to be better than than the next bloke so you increase your chances of being able to earn enough to thrive rather than just slave along.
However there is quite a body of effort that suggest you should not worry at all, we will instigate a centralised world government that will solve all the worlds problems and all you need to do is do what you are told, and definitely don't think about it. A lot of children are bought up with the cognitive ability to fit right in to that model too.
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Post by Fogg on Jul 23, 2022 11:56:58 GMT 12
I think there is a big difference from when we were children to now. It’s the first time that all 4 of the factors I stated above are getting worse. Whereas for our parents and ourselves it has been trending better. So our children are facing a bleaker outlook than we did, in these regard.
The other big difference is that governments around the world have mostly given up solving problems and have proven themselves to be useless. If you look at all the big endeavours mankind is embarking on, they are now privately-funded not state-funded eg investing in new eco-tech, transport, space-travel, AI etc. it’s all driven by a range of private enterprises from startups to the world’s biggest companies.
In other words, capitalism has created these problems and now capitalism is trying to solve them.
Governments are nowhere in sight - but they do have a role reducing the legislation burden to help create right conditions for capitalism to succeed in finding new solutions.
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Post by Cantab on Jul 23, 2022 12:24:56 GMT 12
Governments are nowhere in sight - but they do have a role reducing the legislation burden to help create right conditions for capitalism to succeed in finding new solutions.
Unfortunately that's not the role governments think they have, especially not our one.
Fixing that might be a good first step towards fixing the others, however fixing that may be more difficult than fixing the other four.
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Post by Fogg on Jul 23, 2022 13:32:28 GMT 12
Governments are nowhere in sight - but they do have a role reducing the legislation burden to help create right conditions for capitalism to succeed in finding new solutions.Unfortunately that's not the role governments think they have, especially not our one.
Fixing that might be a good first step towards fixing the others, however fixing that may be more difficult than fixing the other four. Sadly you’re right. Especially in NZ. I’d rather have a useless government that is happy to keep itself small than a useless government that keypad trying to make itself bigger. Which is what we have. |
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Post by Cantab on Jul 23, 2022 14:17:55 GMT 12
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