From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Dieback and culture: Was(Re: AIDS in Africa (was: environment and animals))
Date: 7 Apr 92 19:04:10 GMT
Article-I.D.: topaz.STEINLY.92Apr7200410
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
In-reply-to: alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com's message of 4 Apr 92 02:06:37 GMT

In article <40911795@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:


   / hpindda:sci.environment / steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) /  7:16 am  Mar 31, 1992 /
   In article <40911698@hpindda.cup.hp.com> alanm@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Alan McGowen) writes:

	 In article <STEINLY.92Mar25110713@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
   >   dieback. I think that a noncatastrophic reduction of human population
   >   by 90% *could* be achieved in a 100 -- 200 year time frame, say 150
   >   years.
   >
   >Precisely the time frame I was discussing. 150 years is two life
   >expectancies, to get 90% reduction in that time you either must reduce
   >life expectancy or produce <<1 child per person. Daniel Moscny
   >addressed that problem.

   Back of envelope. I was using a mental estimate of 150 years = 5 
   generations, birth rate = 1 per woman. Without considering age 
   structure, this is W(mean fitness) = 0.5, (0.5)^5 = 0.03. Even with 
   reasonable mortality and fertility schedules added in, this will not be 
   far above 0.1, and many of the women would be above the age of 
   reproduction.  

You somewhat overestimate the reduction because you fail to allow for
the current age profile (majority young in undeveloped countries),
and you fail to allow for people dying off, with 75 year life
expectancy, a lot of the people born 75 years from now will still be
alive 75 years later - so you are basically carrying an extra 2-3
generations at the top of you age pyramid. As Irv hinted at, taking
care of an inverted profile population will be hard, they may just
have to die from neglect (that's _us_ ). Caring for a flat age profile
population is already a strain on the economy. It will probably be
doable though.


   >   The transition from a growth economy to a steady-state economy is a
   >   nontrivial problem, one which economists should be investigating in
   >   detail. 

   >Indeed. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for success either!

   The prepcon-3 document (for the upcoming "Earth Summit" in Rio) 
   on sustainable development calls for research on the transition
   to steady-state economies within its funding package. There is 
   a very good chance that the funding for the sustainable development
   research will all be approved at Rio, and actually made available by
   the signatories. So there will be research grants in this area within
   a year or two.

Yeah, my parents will probably be doing part of the research, I am 
familiar with the problem, and not optimistic that they will come
up with anything.

   >	Kicking the growth habit is likely to be difficult, even 
   >   though we know that the equilibrium economy will be intrinsically 
   >   healthier.  

   >We _know_ this? Will you invite your Usenet pals to the ceremony
   >when you get you Nobel medal?

   Maybe they'll give it to Herman Daly: he deserves it.

They actually might, they've made some remarkably stupid choices in
the past.

   basic grasp of biological science can see that an economy premissed 
   on growth is guaranteed to be a temporary affair, one way or another. 
   Daly seems to have that basic grasp; most other economists do not.

Well, go and gratuitously attack 200 years of economics, I suppose you
think economists have not considered this before? 

   Conclusion: we *know* that the equilibrium economy will be intrinically 
   healthier. Unless we are totally ignorant of biological science, of 
   course, as technocrats and creationists invariably are.

You really are fucked in the head Alan. I'd find your genocidal
musings a lot more amusing if you weren't so pathetically earnest
about it all...  your little romantic delusions of a ecotopia are
kinda cute though.



	(sorry, couldn't resist a traditional little roast, keeps
things going when they get dull).


On a more serious note, given the argument by analogy for
ecology, how come you simultaneously argue for preserving maximal
biodiversity, and at the same time eliminating cultural diversity,
if you analogy is as close as you claim  - and it must be for cultural
ecology to have any validity, then I'd think that eliminating cultural
diversity would be suicidal? Or will your global, homogenous
ecocentric culture somehow magically retain the cultural diversity 
that it must destroy to come to be?

|  Steinn Sigurdsson	|For people are different           		|
|  Lick Observatory	|And so are nations                            	|
|steinly@helios.ucsc.edu|You can borrow ideas                   	|
| "standard disclaimer"	|But you can't borrow situations   - B.B. 1991	|
Newsgroups: sci.environment