Brad

The estimated max number of humans on Earth without language, culture
and
science is approx 250,000 based on body size of humans and required
amount of
biomass required to feed it. The reason for our existential solitude is
directly related to the existence  of language, culture and science. For
this
reason nothing will ever make us happier - except perhaps genetic
re-engineering.

> What mainly interests me, however, are more intractable problems
> of the relation between numbers of warm squirming bodies
> and quality of life.  The classical Greek polis -- which,
> in its way, was a true material democracy and not the
> oxymoron of a "representative democracy" -- simply would not
> have been possible had the city contained 2,000,000
> citizens instead of 20,000 citizens.  2,000,000 persons
> can interact only through "concentrators" (or have I
> missed something?).

Non-representative democracies are possible - just impossible to
establish in a
globalising capialist society. I understand the issues listed below and
agree
with there general thrust - but with the following evolutionary
orientated
caveat - Steve Jones in Almost like a whale - describes how evolution
works
through short-term decisions, mistakes and accidents - for humans -
consider
the effects of the first industrial revolution, neolithic farming which
led to
an increase in population but due to the monocultural diet a smaller
stature
and increased susceptability to disease. In our post-industrial society,
which
means that we are so industrialised that there is nothing else... These
short
term decisions are now potentially so dangerous that we must somehow
apply,
perhaps by force, ethical considerations to the scientific and
engineering
disciplines. It is not acceptable that some 'geek' such as myself
decides what
constitutes acceptable areas of scientific and engineering work.

Anyone know how I can produce an estimate of how many jobs, how much of
the
biosphere has been damaged by a long term is engineering professional in
20
years?

> I certainly like Albert Borgmann's point that less
> advanced civilizations destroyed their environments as badly
> as we destroy ours -- just that we have greater destructive
> power, so that not just the hills around Athens
> are stripped bear but we can strip bear the whole
> Amazon rain forest.  There are only a few models for inspiration
> in the past or in other cultures, and most if not all
> of those come with "qualifications" attached.
>
> Let me try this a different way: The quantity of soylent green which
> can be produced may be sufficient to feed far more than
> 6,000,000,000 -- but there is only so much La Tache to go
> around.
>
> Best wishes!
>
> +\brad mccormiX-Mozilla-Status: 0009