HEADS UP BOYS EVERYWHERE.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/07/16/blue.crab.blues.ap/index.html


And girls too if it applies, but really you don't want to smell like seafood.

[Sean]

Just last night, the wife and I were talking about my belief that we as a species are probably on our way towards a self-made catastrophic event that'll knock the human population back down to a manageable size. There are so many of us right now that we've essentially infested the planet, and are choking off the ability of a huge portion of the rest of life on earth to simply survive. This crab story is yet another example. Anyway, I'm sure we'll wipe a bunch of ourselves out soon, and things'll balance out again.

Good luck to us all....

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Sean! why the pessimist mood today?

One of my fondest memories from the night Clinton won The Presidency involved a lady, who always gave me attitude for reasons unknown to me as to exactly why, response to my exclamation "WOW Clinton won" was "the country is going down".

???

[cacophony]

Just last night, the wife and I were talking about my belief that we as a species are probably on our way towards a self-made catastrophic event that'll knock the human population back down to a manageable size. There are so many of us right now that we've essentially infested the planet, and are choking off the ability of a huge portion of the rest of life on earth to simply survive. This crab story is yet another example. Anyway, I'm sure we'll wipe a bunch of ourselves out soon, and things'll balance out again.

Good luck to us all....

the words every pregnant lady wants to hear.


:p

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

I think he was just playing on his wife for some sympathy lovin'.

[Sean]

Sean! why the pessimist mood today?Oddly enough, I don't feel like it's a pessimistic thought. I think it'll be good for the planet. Obviously it'd be sucky for a hell of a lot of people, but the planet can't continue sustaining us as we are indefinitely, and I don't see us changing drastically as a species any time soon. How many billions of us are there now, and still growing? Filling up every nook and cranny of the planet, tearing down miles and miles of forests every year, poisoning our oceans, displacing entire species to build condos for the new people we're constantly making. And every time in earth's history that the scales tipped too far in any direction, there's been a natural, resulting shift of some kind that brings the scales back to a more balanced position. The scales are really off-kilter right now, so the shift is bound to happen eventually.

Sorry Cacophony. :o

Oh, and the reason the wife and I were talking about it was because we were watching a show on National Geographic that was talking about the amount of forested areas in Madagascar that have been plowed down to make more room for people. Something like an area the size of South Carolina every year. Oddly enough, I rarely get sympathy lovin' after apocalyptic conversations....:D

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Oh, and the reason the wife and I were talking about it was because we were watching a show on National Geographic that was talking about the amount of forested areas in Madagascar that have been plowed down to make more room for people. Something like an area the size of South Carolina every year.

Oh come on, it wouldn't be there anymore if that was accurate.

Are you smoking pot? Oh wait, no, you'd probably be getting the sympathy bit then.

[Deckard]

we as a species are probably on our way towards a self-made catastrophic event that'll knock the human population back down to a manageable size.
Yeah I've thought that, quite often. And there are so many possible ways it could be about to happen too - environmental, virus, nuclear, flu pandemic....

My vote is for all the world's males to turn gay. :D

(well, perhaps just half of them - the better looking half :p )

[dubman]

im looking forward to it.
just to shake things up.
make people matter again.

[Sean]

im looking forward to it.
just to shake things up.
make people matter again.See? That's the spirit! :D

[BeautifulBurnout]

Sean's and Dubman's attitude reminds me of the very end of one of my favourite tv mini-series of the 80s called Edge of Darkness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_Darkness). (Only click if you want the spoilers).

Not to spoil it too much for anyone who feels like watching it - and it is bloody brilliant and should be watched - it is basically about nuclear waste and illegal reprocessing and pollution. And at the very end the daughter "tells" her father about tiny little black flowers that have started to grow on the mountains. And because they are black they attract and absorb sunlight and heat, which begins to melt the snows, effectively speeding up the effects of global warming, which is nature's way of "dealing" with humans for polluting the earth... and the cameras pan to these little flowers.

And, bizarre though it sounds, I actually found that strangely comforting. How screwed up is that?!

[Sean]

And, bizarre though it sounds, I actually found that strangely comforting. How screwed up is that?!Because I share your feelings of comfort, I'm gonna say it's not screwed up at all. :)

[dubman]

of course, the assumption would be that it'd play out like a TV special and only the truly greedy get fucked.
when the reality is that you and me and millions of other people would be in dire straits, and whoever remains would still have that percentage of greedy fucks milling around making the same rules under different guises.
but y'know. i'm tired of death's impact hinging on the number of people dead, that it's perfectly reasonable to believe that if you dont do it someone else will (because it's proven again and again that someone else always does), and that we care more about our neighborhood as we get older because the world is too big to concern yourself with. property values and power plays. using mozart for snack commercials and struggling to recognize truth and humanity in people. something is fundamentally fucked.

but i suppose it's lazy thinking that a catatstrophe is needed to change that.

[/useless hippieism masking some other form of malaise that i'll uncover at some point]

[den]

That's an interesting idea, of the planet or nature turning against people. Some sort of "Event" or "Incident" or "Occurrence." I bet that would make a great movie. For sure.

[IsiliRunite]

I wouldn't consider it an infestation, like rabbits that outproduce their food supply; rather our presence has increased in size without the world-wide accountability and contextual thinking increasing among individual and therefore storybook human flaw fuck-ups just affect more and destroy more than they used to. Soon, we might reach something on the scale of extinction. If we haven't already.

[Sean]

I wouldn't consider it an infestation, like rabbits that outproduce their food supply; rather our presence has increased in size without the world-wide accountability and contextual thinking increasing among individual and therefore storybook human flaw fuck-ups just affect more and destroy more than they used to. Soon, we might reach something on the scale of extinction. If we haven't already.I would agree with that. Basically, that our societal intellect hasn't evolved enough to keep our capacity to do damage in check as the population grows.

[dubman]

yeah but just because we have the capacity and lack of perspective doesnt mean that we're on a crash course for it. people make the best cases for humanity in eloquent speches that start the slow swing back to the other side, but during that time we'd be in the midst of committing the worst atrocities against it. and there's too many variables. i can see millions, even a couple billion happening, but man-made extinction is too alarmist for my blood. we just need enough to change the fundamental rules that make further destruction something too horrifically empty to not stubbornly fight against. if we're like cockroaches we can live like them, damn it.
if we go completely, it'd be indirectly related to us, and primarily a natural event. imo.

[IsiliRunite]

I mean, we are so bad at doing things fully we might not be able to fuck up ourselves without abandoning ship via coincidence; global warming being at least buffered by the disappearance of oil, not principle. The possibility of nuclear holocaust was, and still is, the greatest threat to any human being per button-push in history, though... it may becoming easier.

I wonder what its gonna take for the world fisheries to realize the only reasonable solution to population diving is too have structured, logical breeding areas on at least 30% of the worlds oceans. and the nitrates we dump into the ocean....sad.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

. . .and the nitrates we dump into the ocean....sad.

I thought nitrates were for chest pain? And not to use them in combination with Viagra(Trust me, I don't need it).

WOW, you learn something new everyday!

[IsiliRunite]

I think Sildenafil relaxes the walls of blood vessels in the penis by triggering nitrous oxide release in that specific region of the body but it can also sometimes lower arterial pressure throughout the body, and that would double-dose with nitrates. I think.

[Deckard]

From today's Indie: World warned over killer flu pandemic (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/world-warned-over-killer-flu-pandemic-872809.html)

Travel's got a whole lot easier since the last pandemic.
Though we've been "due" for ages haven't we?

50 million people sliced off the population might be a good thing for the planet, but I don't want anyone I know to be in that 50 million.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

From today's Indie: World warned over killer flu pandemic (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/world-warned-over-killer-flu-pandemic-872809.html)

Travel's got a whole lot easier since the last pandemic.
Though we've been "due" for ages haven't we?

50 million people sliced off the population might be a good thing for the planet, but I don't want anyone I know to be in that 50 million.


Taking Stephen King too literally.