Darwinbots Forum

General => Off Topic => RANT => Topic started by: Testlund on January 03, 2008, 04:05:52 AM

Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 03, 2008, 04:05:52 AM
...because there is nothing that works well nowadays! It's all about making customers waste as much money as possible and no care for producer-consumer relationship. Every single thing you buy has this problem! Technical apparatuses are DESIGNED to break within a few years, usually after two years just when the warrenty run out. It can be a crappy button or something that ruins the ability to use the product, and NO reserve parts to buy! You can just forget about sending it to repair too. I swear there is a conspiracy between service centers and manufacturers. How many times haven't you heard (or experienced yourself) about products sent for repair and get them back and the problem is still there? I'm almost afraid of touching a product fearing I'm going to ruin it. Just simple normal use breaks it!
Right now I was going to print a document on my printer and found there was no paper and I've forgot to buy printing papers. But could I abort the job? NOO!! I bet there isn't a single printer existing where you can get a printing job right, without every so often it gets screwd up, it doesn't get printed or the jobs stays in the damn printer! All designed so you should waste as much paper and ink as possible! I bet printers are programmed to screw up every once in awhile to waste resorces!
This printer has an automatic cleaning that happens every week, which wastes a little ink ofcourse, but according to the salesman you still need to print EVERY WEEK or the cartridges will dry out! I haven't printed for more than a month so you can bet I'll found out after I've purchased papers it won't print the damn document as it should!
Now I can't even turn off the printer because it demands I put paper into it and print the document first! Aborting the job in Windows didn't clear the job! How often haven't you seen that??
I'm sick and tired of every product is a waste of money! Better to go back to the stone age in make your own stuff with wood and stone!
You can't even trust the toilet paper any more!
The various strategies they use to fool the consumers is astounding!

Here's a few examples of toilet papers:

1. Changed interval between the ripping line to make you draw out more of the paper.

2. Make it lose wrapped to contain more air in between the papers.

3. Make 3 papers sticked together instead of 2 to make you waste more.

4. THEN later go back again to previous quantity with a higher price to make you think 'OH, more paper! That's worth paying extra for!' BAH!

And then you have all the other products with smaller and smaller packages with the same price, and every now and then they put out a previous sized package for higher price to fool you.
If this continues people will give up buying stuff, because you get nothing for the money and products will break too soon to be of any use!
Well...In 50 years from now there won't be any resorces left on the planet to make stuff anyway. Everything is going to be used up and the planet is going to be turned into a waste land! No food left to feed all the people and it's going to be a world war about resorces and living space!

Well, I'll be too old then to bother, so... Good luck to the next generation!  
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: googlyeyesultra on January 03, 2008, 04:35:27 AM
Try power cycling the printer (unplug it for a minute and plug it back in). If the printer job is gone in Windoze, then that might fix the problem.

What brand of printers do you use? I've had some good experiences with HP (although if you turn the printer off in the middle of a job, it will print unintelligeable junk when you flip it back on).

Anyways, there are some products that do that. Really, you've just got to find good companies and good products. Just keep a list of companies to buy stuff from and a list of ones to avoid. Although there are a lot of awful companies, there are some real gems.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 03, 2008, 04:57:38 AM
Ok, have you calmed down.  

About the printers, well they don't seem to like me very much, so I couldn't agree more.  

Well it isn't really a fact that there are no recources will be left in 50 years. There are other recources besides petroleum, like tar sands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands) in Canada there is enough of it for another 20 or 30 years. The estimation of when there aren't any recources left like petroleum is set at 200years.

There are also products that keep a little longer, like RAM-memory, I see a lifetime warrentys standing there, not everthing is bad.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Numsgil on January 03, 2008, 05:25:37 AM
While this is true every now and then, there are still products and services out there that are running top notch and reliable.  My printer, for example, was a 15 year old HP LaserJet 4L.  A laser printer.  It ran for 15 years without a problem until my house got hit by lightning and all my electronics got fried, printer included.

If you're looking for a reliable printer, a laser one is the way to go.  You don't get color unless you're willing to spend A LOT, but for document printing it's the way to go.  I ended up getting a replacement laserjet on ebay for like $50.

And I'm still using the ink cartridge I bought 5 years ago.  They're good for like 10K prints or something crazy like that.

My new LCD monitor is the same way.  I got it almost a year ago.  It was on sale, by far the cheapest monitor, with the best specs.  I love it, I've had no problems with it, except maybe that it's so good that I have to lower the contrast and brightness way down to prevent eye strain

Of course, for every thing I've bought that's good there's like 5 things that cause buyer's remorse the next day because they're just crap.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 03, 2008, 05:28:49 AM
Yeah, I've calmed down.    It appears I had some luck with the cartridges, at least the black one. Maybe the cleaning process prolongs their life, like printing every week.

My printer is a 'Brother MFC-240C', but it doesn't matter much. Haven't seen a single printer which doesn't have this problem in my 20 years of printer experience. You should just have to click on ABORT JOB to stop and clear it, not having to be a technical genious!

The assumption about the resorces being gone in 50 years is from the documentary ''The planet', where scientists have calculated that we need 5 planets to sustain the population. Simple math, probably. Just think about it. It's not like you can cover the planet with crops and cows. You need different kind of environments to keep some balance in nature, or you'll end up with a desert if there are too little trees for instance. I think only a great plague or something can stop the problems we're facing.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 03, 2008, 05:37:51 AM
Quote from: Numsgil
If you're looking for a reliable printer, a laser one is the way to go.  You don't get color unless you're willing to spend A LOT, but for document printing it's the way to go.  I ended up getting a replacement laserjet on ebay for like $50.

Yeah, laser printers are pretty good printers. I haven't looked at it for some times, thinking they have been so expensive and you only get to print in black. For home use you need color printing every once in awhile. $50 seems like a bargain though.

I think the only way to affect the bad trend with lesser quality is to not buy a product from the same manufacturer. If this printer breaks within 5 years I won't buy any single thing from 'Brothersoft' again!  
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Numsgil on January 03, 2008, 08:19:53 AM
HP make good printers (and crappy computers) in my experience.  I haven't ever had problems with a HP printer.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 03, 2008, 08:25:54 AM
Quote from: Testlund
The assumption about the resorces being gone in 50 years is from the documentary ''The planet', where scientists have calculated that we need 5 planets to sustain the population. Simple math, probably. Just think about it. It's not like you can cover the planet with crops and cows. You need different kind of environments to keep some balance in nature, or you'll end up with a desert if there are too little trees for instance. I think only a great plague or something can stop the problems we're facing.
Well, sorry but this sounds like a buch of crap. With simple calculations of me, it seems that the population like it is now exists and therefore is able to sustain.(simple calculation: it exists=it is possible)
You need different things, come on be serious.
No trees ----> Desert ??????? When I look at the petato-field I don't see any desert, and there aren't any trees.

I can imagine this in tropical enviroments, there are places where as a farmer you have to use some more complicated technologies. There are places where there have to be plants to stop the desert from spreiding. There are nomads with goats that eat the complete plants together with the wortel. And that way spreiding out the sahara. (Stupid nomads)

My point simply you can cover the planet with plants and cows, what else will you cover over it(speaking as the sun of a farmer). And if there isn't enough land you just polder some extra land. We have done it in the Netherlands.

Maybe I am going to look at the documentary, it seems to be on belgium television next week, I googled.
Edit : oh, not relly is was last month.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 03, 2008, 11:37:02 AM
It's not like the relationship between people and the planet is a stable one. The exploitation is faster than the planet can recover and I was talking about 50 years from now. You should really get a hold of that documentary. I got it on a DVD attached to a newspaper so maybe it's not hard to get it. It may come back on TV too.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: EricL on January 03, 2008, 01:37:17 PM
I'll call attention to the distiction between stand alone products where reliability/reputation/service/relationship is a larger part of the business model (cars for example) and products where the business model is based primarily on selling accompanying consumables.   Printers for a long time have used the razor/ razor blade business model which is why printers are sold so cheaply (at a loss in many cases actually) when they are sold at all (many come for free with a new PC) and why ink cartridges are so expensive and of course, different for every printer and manufacturor.   Printers, like razors, are mearly sockets into which the high-margin consumables are sold.  You'd be surprised at how many products follow this model.  Dell sells low end PCs below cost for example.  The kick backs from all that included junk software are where their margins are (the kickback is like >$50 per PC on average).  The Xbox is the same way.  Last I checked, it took an attach rate of over 9 games per console before Microsoft breaks even.

In general, products are mearly a reflection of what the consumer wants.   Capitalism is another term for darwinism really - what people buy survives.  It doesn;t matter why they buy, only that they do.  Companies make cheap, wasteful, disposable junk because that is what people want as evidenced by their buying habits.  

People, like all organisms and evolution in general, will always make locally optimal decisions over globally optimal decisions.  Selection and/or capitalism tends to illiminate those who don't.  If you think about it, this very bad news for most other species in the short run and our species in the long run.  There's actually a therory that bascially says the reason SETI hasn't found anything is because inteligent species tend to destroy themselves soon after they evolve primarily because the locally optimal decision making which led to their evolution, which was necessary for their emergence in the first place, necessarily leads to global catastrophy at scale.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 04, 2008, 03:51:47 AM
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HP make good printers (and crappy computers) in my experience.

Really? I've always thought that HP is a good hardware business all over, but I haven't own an HP product myself though. It's an old company and I remember seeing HP computers at my first job I had back in the 80's where they were working with military related technology.

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The kick backs from all that included junk software are where their margins are (the kickback is like >$50 per PC on average). The Xbox is the same way. Last I checked, it took an attach rate of over 9 games per console before Microsoft breaks even.

Sorry for my limited understanding of english... You're saying they lose $50 per PC they sell and earn it back with software? ..and XBox has to sell 9 games per console to be able to compete with Microsoft?

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Companies make cheap, wasteful, disposable junk because that is what people want as evidenced by their buying habits.

Yeah, the consumer has the power to affect the world with what they chose to pay for, but when most businesses go for the same strategy it's getting harder to find a product that stands out from the junk.
I saw a TV program once about the problem to reach the customers with commersials in the ever increasing commersial jungle, because people have started to get tired of it and learned to filter out and ignore. Companies use more and more weird ways to draw attention to their products. I find often when I watch a commersial on TV that it appears to be totally unrelated to the product. Just being something silly to draw attention.I find it very strange that they don't understand WHY they don't get through. Instead of inventing more sophisticated lies about their products that is supposed to improve your life and make you happy they should start making good quality products instead so they can JUST TELL THE TRUTH about them! Good products sell themselves!

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There's actually a therory that bascially says the reason SETI hasn't found anything is because inteligent species tend to destroy themselves...

I expect that most scientists and people interested about biology and evolution don't agree with the popular opinion that humans are the ultimate end goal for evolution. In fact most species that just shows up tend to get extinct rather quickly through some catastrophy or missadopting and evolution starts over with some key species, and I think self awareness and intelligence is bad for a species. The only way for a species to survive is if everyone think alike and do alike and live in perfect balance with nature.
I would go so far as to say that Homo Sapiens is just a temporary catastrophy that has shown up, like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. The key species for mammals after the dinosaurs was a small rat. I guess the Rattus Norvegicus will be the next one.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 04, 2008, 05:18:11 AM
Quote from: Testlund
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The kick backs from all that included junk software are where their margins are (the kickback is like >$50 per PC on average). The Xbox is the same way. Last I checked, it took an attach rate of over 9 games per console before Microsoft breaks even.

Sorry for my limited understanding of english... You're saying they lose $50 per PC they sell and earn it back with software? ..and XBox has to sell 9 games per console to be able to compete with Microsoft?
Microsoft owns the Xbox-console, microsoft is losing money for every Xbox where they haven't sold 9 Xbox games for.
I understand that if you didn't knew that Xbox was part of microsoft you didn't understand this.

But is it serious that there are 9games needed to break even, I thought it was just one or two games. I have a feeling they are losing money on the Xbox if this is true. Atleast they don't make a lot of profit of it.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: EricL on January 04, 2008, 01:00:36 PM
Quote from: Testlund
You're saying they lose $50 per PC they sell and earn it back with software? ..and XBox has to sell 9 games per console to be able to compete with Microsoft?
Correct on the first.  If Dell had to sell PCs without any pre-installed software, they would have to rasie prices just to break even.  (They have tried this actually - their current "small business" offerrings make a big deal out of coming without any "trialware".  Of course, those units cost more for the same hardware with the trial stuff.)  The kick they get not just from shipping units with the software but when someone actually clikcs through and converts that 60-day trial anti-virus stuff to the real deal is very significant.  Dell isn't really a PC business at least at the low end.  They sell sockets for subscription software conduit and ink cartridges.

As Peter says, Microsft makes the Xbox and yes, they have to sell a large number of games (not just any games, but games made by Microsoft's game studios, which includes Bungee - it was like 8.6 games per console 3 years ago prior to the 360) just to break even.  The larger xbox/games studio business unit has yet to break even.  It's a multi-billion dollar company taken alone, but it's not profitable, not yet.  You may have heard Bungee is spinning off after the success of Halo 3.  This is because the folks there don't want their success to be shackled to the losing business of selling consoles.  They want their compensation and stock options to reflect them as a stand alone business.  Can you blame them?   Local optomization.

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Instead of inventing more sophisticated lies about their products that is supposed to improve your life and make you happy they should start making good quality products instead so they can JUST TELL THE TRUTH about them! Good products sell themselves!
This is true in some cases and of course not at all true in other cases.  It takes an educated consumer with the resorces to pay more in the short run for longevity and quality for this to be true.   So, this is works for high-end products targeted at high end consumers - Porsches and Mercedes and perhaps IPhones and such.  But the rise of cheap crap from China is testimony to the fact that the Wal-mart shopper generally prefers to save $5 in the near term even if they have to buy it twice in the longer term.  Local optomization.

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I expect that most scientists and people interested about biology and evolution don't agree with the popular opinion that humans are the ultimate end goal for evolution.
I certainly am not implying that.  I was mearly pointing out a therory to support my point about evolution necessitating local optomization.  THe point is that once a species gains power to change their own environment through climate change, making other species extict, nuclear bombs or whatever, local optomization make lead to it's destruction.  Its a theory without evidence.  I netiher agree nor dispute it.  

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In fact most species that just shows up tend to get extinct rather quickly through some catastrophy or missadopting and evolution starts over with some key species,
There are many examples of species which last a very long time with little change.  Evolution favors change where change is favorred and favors stasis where stasis is favorred.  It may be that environmental flexability and tool-using intelligence represents incredibly usefull and novel adaptations which change the game.  Certainly extensive tool-using is a relativly recent adaptation in evolutionary terms.

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and I think self awareness and intelligence is bad for a species. ,
I disagree with the first.  I challenge you to show that my dog is not self aware.  I challenge you to show that a single celled bacteria is not self aware.  Forst you must define self aware, which is hard to do.  Certainly anything with even a primitve nervous system is self aware in some respect in that it is "aware" of where it ends and everything else begins.    

The jury is still out on the second point.  Certainly one can make a case either way but you first have to define "good" and "bad".  If "good" means population numbers, surely intelligence has done well for humans to date....

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The only way for a species to survive is if everyone think alike and do alike and live in perfect balance with nature.,
Now your just spouting human-centric tree-hugging mystical nonsense.  No species delibertly tries to live "in balance with nature".  Every organism - every gene - makes localy optimal choices which serve to maximize their own fitness.  Period.  If the sum of these choices appear to result in some sort of balance when viewed from an external frame of reference - our frame of reference - that may be a necessary side effect of all that locally optimal behaviour, but it certainly is not intentional on the part of speceis or organisms or genes.

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I would go so far as to say that Homo Sapiens is just a temporary catastrophy that has shown up, like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. The key species for mammals after the dinosaurs was a small rat. I guess the Rattus Norvegicus will be the next one.
You may be right.  The jury is still out.  Chinese curse:  May you live in interesting times....
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 04, 2008, 02:01:02 PM
Quote from: EricL
The jury is still out on the second point.  Certainly one can make a case either way but you first have to define "good" and "bad".  If "good" means population numbers, surely intelligence has done well for humans to date....
We live so my idea is that intelligence is a good point(it is in our case). But what is good in evolution, we humans live now but will the specie survive, that can only be told far far in the future. There was a mammel that survived the dinosaurs. Well mammals are overall in animal species smart. And most species that survive nowadays are warmbloaded smart or coldbloaded energiesaving, I thought, could be wrong. So smart survives that's good isn't it.

Doesn't intellingence in evolution meanly mean.
More intelligence ----> more energy usage/quicker adoption to changing enviroment.
What means if enviroment changes fast inteligence is good.
If enviroment stays desame, intelligence is bad.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 04, 2008, 02:36:24 PM
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No species delibertly tries to live "in balance with nature".

No, but they don't try to separate themselves from nature either. What I mean is that humans must agree to live in balance with nature, while other species just do it instinctively. Humans is a species that just suddenly appeared and went crazy on the planet, while other species makes slow progress and changes just a little so nature can keep up, and other species can keep up.

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I disagree with the first. I challenge you to show that my dog is not self aware. I challenge you to show that a single celled bacteria is not self aware. Forst you must define self aware, which is hard to do. Certainly anything with even a primitve nervous system is self aware in some respect in that it is "aware" of where it ends and everything else begins.

How I define self awareness is to understand yourself and what you are. I doubt a dog think about itself, or even knowing it's a different species. It just sees itself as a flock member.
If your dog became self aware it would probably demand to sit at the table and eat with you, because it would compare itself with you, wondering why you get a bunch or extra priviliges while he/she don't.
Bacterias and critters are little more than biological machines imo. Saying those are self aware is like saying your computer is self aware, or your car.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 04, 2008, 02:44:51 PM
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We live so my idea is that intelligence is a good point(it is in our case). But what is good in evolution, we humans live now but will the specie survive, that can only be told far far in the future. There was a mammel that survived the dinosaurs. Well mammals are overall in animal species smart. And most species that survive nowadays are warmbloaded smart or coldbloaded energiesaving, I thought, could be wrong. So smart survives that's good isn't it.

You got a point there, though there are some that believe the dinosaurs might have been both intelligent and warm blooded, a theory mensioned in a program I saw last year. It was a program about how the world would have looked like if that meteor had missed. It was said that the raptor might have been the dominant species instead, and maybe intelligent like us.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 04, 2008, 03:18:19 PM
Quote from: Testlund
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No species delibertly tries to live "in balance with nature".

No, but they don't try to separate themselves from nature either. What I mean is that humans must agree to live in balance with nature, while other species just do it instinctively. Humans is a species that just suddenly appeared and went crazy on the planet, while other species makes slow progress and changes just a little so nature can keep up, and other species can keep up.
Just a question what is the definition of nature in your way anyway?

To my definition, practically everything in europe isn't nature. How can we split off or live in balance with something that doesn't exist anymore.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: EricL on January 04, 2008, 03:30:36 PM
Quote from: Testlund
What I mean is that humans must agree to live in balance with nature, while other species just do it instinctively. Humans is a species that just suddenly appeared and went crazy on the planet, while other species makes slow progress and changes just a little so nature can keep up, and other species can keep up.
 Well, I think your wrong on the reasoning.  No species lives in balance with nature.  Every species (every gene actually) is out for itself and would cheat the system if there was a reproductive fitness advantage in it.  Humans are no different nor are they recent.  Homo did not suddenly appear.  Our genus and the 20+ species of human within it (all but one now extinct) have been around for more than 2.5 million years.  My point is that there is no difference between the way individual humans act and the way individuals of any other species act.  They always act selfishly, locally, which is what makes evolution work in the first place.  They would be selected against if they acted otherwise.  (And yes, there are various examples of locally altruistic behaviour.  But they are actually in the end selfish in that they still serve to maximize reproductive fitness.)

You are of course correct to say that the consequences of 6.5 billion humans all making locally optimal selfish decisions is an onslaught unlike anything the planet as seen before given the extent of our extended phenotype (which includes everything from fusion bombs to deforestation to massive CO2 emission) and that the result is likely to be global disaterious for both humans and many other species.  Personally, I am incredibly pessimistic that humans will change our collective behaviour.  Our biology is against it.

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How I define self awareness is to understand yourself and what you are.
Okay, define "understand" then.  You see how hard this is?  People think that terms like "self aware" or "consciousness" are obvious and self evident but they arn't, not really.  You can say something specific like "humans are probobly the only animal which has learned enough to contemplate their own evolution" but its very hard to deal in more abstract terms like self awareness.   IMHO, humans represent more of an incremental leap than a revolutional leap in these areas.  We have bigger brains with incrementally more capabilities yes but dogs as well as most other mammals are surprisingly good at very complex reasoning, for example at understanding intentional stance (putting yourself in another's shoes) or even transitive intentional stance ("I think this is what he thinks I'm thinking").  This can be demonstrated and is a direct result of preditory/prey evolution.   Bottom line, it's just plain arogant to elevate humans to far beyond other species w.r.t. such abstract concepts as "self awareness".

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Saying those are self aware is like saying your computer is self aware, or your car.
No, it's not.  There is a huge difference between designed and evolved complexity.  A single celled organism is orders of magnitude more complex and more general purpose than a computer.  It has far more self awareness (to use that sloppy term) than any designed object humans have made which arguably all have none.  It flees, it pursues, it feeds, it eliminates waste, it reproduces, it is "aware" of it's cell wall and controls substances passing through it.  It "knows" what is itself and what is not.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 04, 2008, 03:37:24 PM
Quote from: Testlund
You got a point there, though there are some that believe the dinosaurs might have been both intelligent and warm blooded, a theory mensioned in a program I saw last year. It was a program about how the world would have looked like if that meteor had missed. It was said that the raptor might have been the dominant species instead, and maybe intelligent like us.
Warmbloaded dinosaurs, well sounds strange. They are placed in reptile-species. But could be true.

About intelligence anything can be said, any scientist could say there could be an uber-intelligent dinosaur specie. Mainly it is said dinos are stupid becouse there brain is small in comparison, and I mainly tend to share that opinion. They are probably stupid.

Becouse of the high number of species that we don't even know of, there could always be an dino that's smart. And there could be a dinosaur we know of that could be smart. But really scientists are just guesing in many ways and this is guesing. Intelligence it a hard point to determine, even with today living species we can't determine whitch one is smarter then the other,(well most agree that we are one of the smartest species  , well maybe a dolphine is smarter, you never know), smart dinos is just a pure gues. I can't say different.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 04, 2008, 03:47:20 PM
Quote from: EricL
You are of course correct to say that the consequences of 6.5 billion humans all making locally optimal selfish decisions is an onslaught unlike anything the planet as seen before given the extent of our extended phenotype (which includes everything from fusion bombs to deforestation to massive CO2 emission) and that the result is likely to be global disaterious for both humans and many other species.  Personally, I am incredibly pessimistic that humans will change our collective behaviour.  Our biology is against it.
Can you explain why fusion bombs, deforestation, and massive CO2 emmion, could be disaterious to other humans and other species.
Couse I don't we have that high impact on the enviroment. I think humans don't have as big of an effect on enviroment as you think.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: EricL on January 04, 2008, 04:03:50 PM
Quote from: Peter
Can you explain why fusion bombs, deforestation, and massive CO2 emmion, could be disaterious to other humans and other species.
Couse I don't we have that high impact on the enviroment. I think humans don't have as big of an effect on enviroment as you think.
Are you kidding?  You must not get out much.  What metric should we use?  Atmospheric CO2 levels?  Average global tempertues?  Percent forest land converted to mono-specie human crops?  PCB or lead levels in Lake Michigan?  Oceanic fish sizes and fishery depletions?  Number of endangered or extinct species world wide?  Coral reef destruction?  I went scuba diving a few months ago in a place in Hawaii where I went 30 years ago.  Huge change for the worse.

And BTW, dinosaurs are not reptiles despite the Latin name.  They are recognized as separate families today, as different as reptiles and mammals..  In fact there were two different families of dinosaurs, as unrelated to each other as to mammals and there is strong evidence that at least one was homothermic.  Today we call their descendants "birds".

There may very well have been "smart" dinosaurers though there are none in the fossil record I know of with brain to body mass ratios approaching that of humans (or dolphins which are barely below us on that scale).  What is fairly conclusive is that there is no trace of dinosaur tool users in the fossil record.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Jez on January 04, 2008, 05:09:42 PM
I have to go with Eric on this one; the vast majority of scientists who study things like global warming think we are causing a problem so why shouldn't I? Do you have any idea how few degrees the oceans would have to warm before they're turned into giant methane jacuzzi's?
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 04, 2008, 05:38:54 PM
Quote from: EricL
Are you kidding? You must not get out much. What metric should we use? Atmospheric CO2 levels? Average global tempertues? Percent forest land converted to mono-specie human crops? PCB or lead levels in Lake Michigan? Oceanic fish sizes and fishery depletions? Number of endangered or extinct species world wide? Coral reef destruction? I went scuba diving a few months ago in a place in Hawaii where I went 30 years ago. Huge change for the worse.

Co2 levels : What is the enviromental damage of a higher CO2 level

Average temperatures : There have been many temperature shifts in time. What does a rise in temperature actual mean. In the 50er years there where also scientists who said there was going to be an icetime. Another thing is that the temperature of mars has also been measured form out the 70s. Mars seems to have globally desame temperature rising as on earth.

percent forest land converted to mono-specie human crops: your point is. There is a bigger chance of crop-deseases if that is what you mean. But I gues the farmers are taking that into account. What is the enviromental loss on big scale on the world when destroying the rain forest. I know the animals that use to live there aren't very happy.

PCB and lead : PCB is forbidden and lead forbidden or allowed in low concentrations. New products of today are thoughrough checked before letting them use.

oceanic fish sizes and fishery depletions : As far I know there are in the Netherlands strict regulations about fishery. In the rest of Europe there are also regulations about fishery(altrough less regulated). My gues that desame is in america and the rest of the world, atleast the ones with big fisherships.

Number of endangered or extinct species world wide : Well, true there are many endangered species. That probably mostly becouse their habitat is taken over by humans and the increasing of the habitat of other species created by human, I don't see a way to stop humans from growing further and decreasing their habitat and the increasing of the habitat of other species. There are much species that are endangered. So is that really bad, is it. We could put them in zoo's.

Coral reef destruction : True, there is much coral reef destruction. On the other side, there are (mostly for tourism) projects set up to recreate the coral reef at some places.

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I have to go with Eric on this one; the vast majority of scientists who study things like global warming think we are causing a problem so why shouldn't I? Do you have any idea how few degrees the oceans would have to warm before they're turned into giant methane jacuzzi's?
Everybody is against me, giant methane jacuzzi's. Hmmm, nice methane we can use that for energie.
Good    
But yes, I am pretty sceptic about global warming.

Oh, and I am not saying the effect of humans on the whole enviroment is nihil. But that the effect of human is heavily overdriven(is that the right word)exspecially on the climate.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Numsgil on January 05, 2008, 01:22:52 AM
Quote from: Peter
Quote from: Testlund
You got a point there, though there are some that believe the dinosaurs might have been both intelligent and warm blooded, a theory mensioned in a program I saw last year. It was a program about how the world would have looked like if that meteor had missed. It was said that the raptor might have been the dominant species instead, and maybe intelligent like us.
Warmbloaded dinosaurs, well sounds strange. They are placed in reptile-species. But could be true.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur) hints at this.  It's very recent, but DNA analysis (yep, they managed to find Dino DNA, like in the last year) strongly supports the idea that Dinos and birds are directly related.  This, with other evidence, suggests that Dinos might have had some sort of endothermic ability, though most likely more primitive than modern mammals or birds.  Thus giving rise to the term "luke-warm blooded."  It's not quite 100%, but the evidence is strongly leaning in that direction.  It's not a far fetched assertion at all.

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About intelligence anything can be said, any scientist could say there could be an uber-intelligent dinosaur specie. Mainly it is said dinos are stupid becouse there brain is small in comparison, and I mainly tend to share that opinion. They are probably stupid.

Not all dino brains are small.  Veloceraptor (sp?) brains are on par with most mammalian species.  It's not a stretch to suggest that there were Dinos as smart as something like a wolf or dog.  Sapience is something of a stretch, but considering how fragmented the fossil record is it's hardly impossible.  If humans all died right now we'd barely be a blip in the geological record.  Plus most human burial practices are not conducive to fossilization.

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even with today living species we can't determine whitch one is smarter then the other,(well most agree that we are one of the smartest species  , well maybe a dolphine is smarter, you never know), smart dinos is just a pure gues. I can't say different.

Not true, see this link (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Int3.html).  There's a certain level of fudging involved when you cross class boundaries (ie: from mammal to dinosaur), but it can give rough estimates of intelligence with respect to brain size and body weight.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Endy on January 05, 2008, 01:34:21 AM
Let's see...

Rising CO2: Think Venus... Just me, but an out of control Green House Effect would be really bad.

Methane in Oceans: There's enough methane down there to litterally burn the atmosphere. If we could tap into it it'd be great; but we're just as likely to cause a run-away reaction releasing it.

The main problem with the destruction of Rain Forests and Coral Reefs is that the loss of biodiversity has a net effect on many species. We're also not doing nearly enough to compensate for the loss. (On a personal note I'm stationed over in Guam and can see the effects of "bleaching" washing up on the shore. It's mainly just nasty to look at.)

My own belief is that we'll eventually be forced to accept a more enviromental friendly lifestyle. If it became logically better(government, climate change) to wisely use resources, then it would become smart on a local level.

Intelligence: The problem with the Evolution alone approach is that Evolution can't adjust to sudden changes. Out of all the larger lifeforms, we have the best odds of surviving any climatic change.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Numsgil on January 05, 2008, 01:55:55 AM
Quote from: Peter
Co2 levels : What is the enviromental damage of a higher CO2 level

Increases in global ambient temperature through the well understood greenhouse effect.

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Average temperatures : There have been many temperature shifts in time. What does a rise in temperature actual mean. In the 50er years there where also scientists who said there was going to be an icetime. Another thing is that the temperature of mars has also been measured form out the 70s. Mars seems to have globally desame temperature rising as on earth.

Average temperatures usually change extremely slowly, and even then have dramatic effects on the planet.  A hotter planet means more extreme weather (to put it simply there's more energy in the system).  Places that were once wet become dry, and vice versa.  Which means floods and droughts.  Many plant and animal species, already on the brink of extinction, could be pushed to the extinction.  This would decrease the global biodiversity.  Most of humanity is surviving on the brink of death themselves.  Consider the little ice age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_ice_age) which had profound effects on Europe.  A hotter planet means a wetter tropic and a drier temperate zone.

On the other hand, a warming planet could have profound positive effects as well.  Changes to global temperature could make the planet more hospitable to human life.  For example extending growing seasons in various agricultural areas, or opening up arable land in the subarctic.  The problem is that the effects and magnitudes are way beyond our ability to properly predict or control.  It's like rolling the dice with billions of lives.

Also, while the evidence is irrefutable that humans are warming the planet, we don't know how much of the observed warming is human influenced.  It's possible that the sun is going through a period of increased activity, which in theory could be causing the vast majority of the obsesrved warming.  The little ice age is believed to have been caused by the reverse: a solar cooldown.  So not only are the effects indeterminable, but we might not even have the ability to stop or reverse it.

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percent forest land converted to mono-specie human crops: your point is. There is a bigger chance of crop-deseases if that is what you mean. But I gues the farmers are taking that into account.

Monocrops are huge profit makers in the short term.  But most species are not hardy at all.  They're grown for their ability to produce money, not survive.  They grow on a razor thin margin that can easily be upset.  Witness the Irish potato famine.

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What is the enviromental loss on big scale on the world when destroying the rain forest. I know the animals that use to live there aren't very happy.

A loss of biodiversity and soil quality.  That land doesn't suddenly become farmland.  After a few years it becomes unarable, and is left fallow.  Left unchecked, eventually the entire amazon basin could look like the sahara.

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PCB and lead : PCB is forbidden and lead forbidden or allowed in low concentrations. New products of today are thoughrough checked before letting them use.

Forbidden or not, they've had and are having strong effects on the environment.  Consider your computer monitor.  It has roughly a pound of lead in it, if I remember correctly.  All sorts of volatile and toxic chemicals exist in all sorts of household products.  And they're routinely disposed of improperly.

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oceanic fish sizes and fishery depletions : As far I know there are in the Netherlands strict regulations about fishery. In the rest of Europe there are also regulations about fishery(altrough less regulated). My gues that desame is in america and the rest of the world, atleast the ones with big fisherships.

Those requlations go against the natural tendancy of the fishing industries, and are largely a consequence of the environmental movement in the 60s and 70s.  When environmentalism goes out of vogue, so will those regulations.

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Number of endangered or extinct species world wide : Well, true there are many endangered species. That probably mostly becouse their habitat is taken over by humans and the increasing of the habitat of other species created by human, I don't see a way to stop humans from growing further and decreasing their habitat and the increasing of the habitat of other species. There are much species that are endangered.

Actually, human growth does seem to have a natural sense of carrying capacity, at least in industrialized areas with ample supply of birth control and a social acceptance.  Europe's birth rate, I believe, is in strong decline.  Apparently economic pressures might actually be sufficient to limit human growth, when birth control allows parents to choose to conceive or not.  But it remains to be seen if this birth rate decline is just a short term fad or a long term trend, and wether this self-limiting growth is universal to humanity or a side-effect of the rather liberal European culture.

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So is that really bad, is it. We could put them in zoo's.

Like we did with the Tasmanian tiger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine)?  Zoos are only barely beginning to reach a break even point with animal breeding.  It wasn't all that long ago that most zoo specimens were hunted from the wild.  Go to your local zoo and find out how many of the animals were born in captivity.  I'll bet you anything that it's in the far minority.  Plus, populations need a large gene pool to remain stable.  Zoos have to spend a lot of money to get breeding pairs together.  It's just not economically viable as a long term solution.  Zoos are not the way to ensure long term species survival.

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Coral reef destruction : True, there is much coral reef destruction. On the other side, there are (mostly for tourism) projects set up to recreate the coral reef at some places.

Proper coral reefs are centuries in the making.  It might be possible to create faux coral reefs, but I doubt they'll be effective on a large, hundreds of miles scale.

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But yes, I am pretty sceptic about global warming.

Sounds to me like your skepticism is confused.  Ask yourself these five questions:

1.  Is global warming hapening?
2.  Is it humanity's fault
3.  Can humanity fix it
4.  Should humanity fix it (that is, is global warming a net positive for humanity?)
5.  Do other co-inhabitors of our planet have a right to existance (that is, do Polar Bears deserve to live?)

A lot of your reasoning seems to give conflicting answers for these three questions.  My answers: 1. Yes. 2. Probably, though it could be the sun, too.  3.  Probably, by drastically cutting emissions down to zero, the planet could recover in a century or so.  But until it's economically driven, it won't happen. 4. Probably, but there is a chance that a warmer planet would increase the carrying capacity for humanity.  But I wouldn't bet on it.  5.  Yes, absolutely.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 05, 2008, 03:34:11 AM
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Our genus and the 20+ species of human within it (all but one now extinct) have been around for more than 2.5 million years.

That's what I mean with suddenly appear. It's just a fart in the earths history.
Here's a very nice site that shows how we spread on the planet:

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/ (http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/)

According to this my guess is that human evolution took the next step here, only 160000 years ago, starting spreading out like a plague.

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My point is that there is no difference between the way individual humans act and the way individuals of any other species act. They always act selfishly, locally, which is what makes evolution work in the first place. They would be selected against if they acted otherwise. (And yes, there are various examples of locally altruistic behaviour. But they are actually in the end selfish in that they still serve to maximize reproductive fitness.)

I totally agree with you here! It's just that other species selfish behavior don't get out of bounds. It always end up in balance with nature. If our way is natural than mother nature made a blunder indead and it will probably be corrected. We change our ways or we die out together with a destroyed planet.

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You are of course correct to say that the consequences of 6.5 billion humans all making locally optimal selfish decisions is an onslaught unlike anything the planet as seen before given the extent of our extended phenotype (which includes everything from fusion bombs to deforestation to massive CO2 emission) and that the result is likely to be global disaterious for both humans and many other species.

EXACTLY!

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Personally, I am incredibly pessimistic that humans will change our collective behaviour. Our biology is against it.

I don't think that would be a problem. We don't have to struggle the same way as other species for survival, as we are in total control. If you think about it, there are still tribes of people living in harmony with nature, in Africa and Amazonas for instance and the only thing that threatens them are we who don't live like they do. But I'm not saying we all have to go back to hunting and gathering, just that we need to slow down and stop raping the planet.

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Okay, define "understand" then. You see how hard this is? People think that terms like "self aware" or "consciousness" are obvious and self evident but they arn't, not really.

It's hard to prove the level of self awareness in an animal that can't talk to you. You can only observe it's behavior and compare it to yourself. Well... That would be self awareness that we humans can ponder such things. Would a dog think "Why am I the only one in this flock walking on all four? I want that cap you're wearing! Give it to me!"

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mammals are surprisingly good at very complex reasoning,


I agree with that. Animals that grow up among humans tend to show a learning capability beyond what they would need for survival on their own, which is quite remarkable. Dogs that can learn words for instance but...

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for example at understanding intentional stance (putting yourself in another's shoes) or even transitive intentional stance ("I think this is what he thinks I'm thinking").

This I highly doubt though.

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bout intelligence anything can be said, any scientist could say there could be an uber-intelligent dinosaur specie. Mainly it is said dinos are stupid becouse there brain is small in comparison, and I mainly tend to share that opinion. They are probably stupid.

They COULD have had the same intelligence as a rat. Rats have pretty small heads but they show increadible cunning. I've had rats myself and they show quote interesting behavior. I tried to prevent my rats from digging into my plants, and reprimand them to not go there. It had the totally opposite effect, exactly like a small child that finds it more interesting to touch things they are forbidden to touch.

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QUOTE(Peter @ Jan 4 2008, 12:47 PM) *

Can you explain why fusion bombs, deforestation, and massive CO2 emmion, could be disaterious to other humans and other species. Couse I don't we have that high impact on the enviroment. I think humans don't have as big of an effect on enviroment as you think.

Are you kidding? You must not get out much.

LOL

Ok, this post is going to get long so I think I'll stop here.  
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 05, 2008, 04:32:19 AM
Quote from: Numsgil
1.  Is global warming hapening?
2.  Is it humanity's fault
3.  Can humanity fix it
4.  Should humanity fix it (that is, is global warming a net positive for humanity?)
5.  Do other co-inhabitors of our planet have a right to existance (that is, do Polar Bears deserve to live?)5.

1. Yes, but some scientists thinks it might start to get cooler already within a few years from now.

2. No. there are some well made explanations at Youtube to believe it's not human made. From what I've seen, the info that claims it's man made looks more like propaganda than scientific explanations, while the ones that claim it's natural shows more in depth scientific explanations, and how the scientists that came up with the theory that it's man made actually not really believe what they're saying. They manipulated the scientific results and seems more interesting in prestige and profit.

The Global Warming Swindle is a good place to start and then you can dig up the rest at Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWRqQ_iI7qQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWRqQ_iI7qQ)

3. Highly unlikely.

4. No, we should adapt to it.

5. Yes, because they have evolved to be here, and just whiping them out might have catastrophic results, tipping the balance in a way we can't predict. And let them get extinct is just an unnecessary waste, because we COULD live together with them!
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 05, 2008, 07:26:12 AM
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1. Is global warming hapening?
2. Is it humanity's fault
3. Can humanity fix it
4. Should humanity fix it (that is, is global warming a net positive for humanity?)
5. Do other co-inhabitors of our planet have a right to existance (that is, do Polar Bears deserve to live?)

First global warming is the theory of extra greenhouse effect due to extra CO2-levels. And I don't believe in that theorie

1. No, there is an increase in temperare due to the sun.

2. No, it is the sun.

3. No, they can't fix the sun.

4. The positive depends on where you live. Maybe we should, maybe we should not. I don't even think we could. But climate is conplicated and if we're powerfull enough to change stuff, we could better not do it, something may seem right but will turn out the other way, it is too complicated. We could better adept.

5. Yes, atleast until they get in our way. If there is a sudden complete food-shortage and we can eat them. And we could alos eat the fish they will not eat after becouse we just took them out. So complete anwser Yes/No. They may live but not if it could cost human-lives.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Numsgil on January 05, 2008, 09:13:03 AM
Global warming simply means that the planet is warming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming).  If you don't want to look like a fool needlessly, I would admit that global warming is happening when you talk to other people, since it's all just semantics.

Otherwise very telling responses
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 05, 2008, 10:09:17 AM
Quote from: Numsgil
Global warming simply means that the planet is warming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming).  If you don't want to look like a fool needlessly, I would admit that global warming is happening when you talk to other people, since it's all just semantics.

Otherwise very telling responses
You're right, after reading wikipedia. Global warming simply means that the the average temperature is rising. Well it is you are right  

Well I leave it to a strange combination, of bad translation of my side(most english have I leaned from games, really  ). And propanganda of scientists, and Al Gore alike that really made me think there was a direct connection between CO2 and Global warming and I turned it into some kind of enlarged greenhouse effect theorie.

semantics: Well I am going to look up the exact meaning of it.  My english isn't that good.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: EricL on January 05, 2008, 02:33:43 PM
Quote from: Numsgil
1.  Is global warming hapening?
2.  Is it humanity's fault
3.  Can humanity fix it
4.  Should humanity fix it (that is, is global warming a net positive for humanity?)
5.  Do other co-inhabitors of our planet have a right to existance (that is, do Polar Bears deserve to live?)

1. Yes.  There is overwhelming evidence of this as well as well as my own anadontal personal experience.  I have sailed around in bays that were Alaskan tide water glaciers when the charts were made for example.

2. Yes.  There is of course some historical cyclic variation in both the sun's output and the earths own heat retention, but the evidence overwhelmingly suggests human activity is the primary culprit.  And it's not just recent industrial activity though the curve has gone exponential in the past few 100 years.  Humans have been burning forests to hunt and otherwise changing their environment at scale for tens of thousands of years.

3. Yes, but they won't.  Humans lack the will (and the biology) to think long term and act globally and collectivly (at some local expense) until the local benifits of such global activity are overwhelmingly apparant locally at which point it is often too late.   This isn't cloroflorocarbons.   Too many factors, from the billions in the third world wanting an increased standard of living to the capitialistic models of the first world which (like evolution) optomize for local gain are acting against it.   These will not be overcome in the short or mid term.   I'm afraid the world of 100 years from now will be considerably warmer and less diverse and way more crowded (with humans).  The fall for humans will likely come later when all airable land is used for crops and billions die for lack of petrolum feterilizer or some such.  There will be a Hubbard Peak for food some day I predict.

4. Yes, but we won't.  We're an incredibly adaptable species to be sure that can live in many different environments.  Humans will survice though the world is converred in concrete.  I for one would prefer to live in a more interesting and biologically diverse world.

5. The terms "right" and "deserve" presume an external frame of reference which does not exist.  The environment has changed and will continue to change.  Species which cannot adapt will go extict.  It saddens me, but this is the way it has always been.  There is no deserve, there is no right, except as that allowed by collective human behaviour which as above, I am very pessimistic about.  I have visited mountain gorrillas in Rwanda.  I have sailed with killer whales in Alaska and grey whales in the Sea of Cortez.   Personally I would gladly trade a few billion humans for a more diverse ecology but the realist in me says that they and the polar bears and many thousands of other extant species are doomed no matter what I think.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Numsgil on January 05, 2008, 09:06:55 PM
The point I'm trying to make with 5 is to ask if humanity could fundamentally change the planet to make it better for us, but at the detriment of other animals, would we be "moral" to do so (moral from the point of view of you personally).  For many people it would be, and for others it wouldn't.  So it's a good barometer of your attitude towards environmentalism.  But you gave a good answer anyway
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 06, 2008, 07:59:14 AM
I think changing the planet in a way so it gets better for us but worse for a lot of other species would just work for a short time, because we're disrupting a balance that has evolved for a very long time. All species that are here are supposed to be here! At least they're not supposed to get whiped out within a few 100 years or so. Very quick changes is more like catastrophies which would cause evolution to have to start over and rebuild everything, with new species. Ecosystems will likely colapse if several species gets extinct. We need a diverse planet!
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 06, 2008, 12:34:13 PM
Let go further  
Quote from: Numsgil
Increases in global ambient temperature through the well understood greenhouse effect.
Well the greenhouse effect takes more into account then just the CO2 amout. The thickness of atmosphere, other greenhouse-gasses and their amout in atomosphere. You could compare the two closest planets, mars and venus. Both have a very high CO2-percentage in atmosphere. Venus is hot and mars is cold. Venus got a thick atmosphere and mars a thin one. Maybe humans have an effect on global temperature but I highly doubt that it is an measurable effect humands have. And I think only future can bring the truth, about how the effect of humans was/is.

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Average temperatures usually change extremely slowly, and even then have dramatic effects on the planet.  A hotter planet means more extreme weather (to put it simply there's more energy in the system).  Places that were once wet become dry, and vice versa.  Which means floods and droughts.  Many plant and animal species, already on the brink of extinction, could be pushed to the extinction.  This would decrease the global biodiversity.  Most of humanity is surviving on the brink of death themselves.  Consider the little ice age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_ice_age) which had profound effects on Europe.  A hotter planet means a wetter tropic and a drier temperate zone.
How much knowledge do we have in the change of average temperatures, so how can we tell what a fast temperature rise is and what is normal.
I had seen some graphic lieing around somewhere that would show that the increase in temperature we have now isn't very unusual, poorly I can't find it back  
I agree with your points that global warming could have good/bad effects, and the fact that anyway we turn it we may not be able to reverse it.

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Monocrops are huge profit makers in the short term.  But most species are not hardy at all.  They're grown for their ability to produce money, not survive.  They grow on a razor thin margin that can easily be upset.  Witness the Irish potato famine.
The irish potato famine, well that could even happen right now in any country. It was a disease that did it in Ireland in combination with the poor people of Ireland so that even the leftover potatos where bought by the english, in africa it even happens nowadays, any bad harvest will couse many people to die.
With today subsidion on green petrol/alcohol well fuel. The prices for the particular crops has rissen. Meaning that every not rich country could await disaster. I don't know where exactly in america you live but I try to get a country close, look at mexico. The higher prices will probably couse for the upcoming jears to have a foodshortage in mexico. A lot of their crops will go to america for the green fuels.
The upcoming jears you could have a complete and possible worse irish famine if there came an unknown desease like happened there.

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A loss of biodiversity and soil quality.  That land doesn't suddenly become farmland.  After a few years it becomes unarable, and is left fallow.  Left unchecked, eventually the entire amazon basin could look like the sahara.
There is a reason there is a forest in amazon and there isn't in sahara. The slash and burn policy couses to just get suddenly some farmland. And to my idea it works there is farmland and it stays. I haven't heard of any farmland to get turned into desert suddenly. If it turns into desert why doesn't the forest do so.

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Forbidden or not, they've had and are having strong effects on the environment.  Consider your computer monitor.  It has roughly a pound of lead in it, if I remember correctly.  All sorts of volatile and toxic chemicals exist in all sorts of household products.  And they're routinely disposed of improperly.
They have had some effects on enviroment, the effects of older products will eventual wear off. Today products have got a lott of toxic-testing and other stuff. It is just better then it use to be. There exists some volatile toxic chemicals in household products, but I haven't heard of anyone eating then. A pound of lead in my monitor, that is a lot. The inproperly dispose is a bad point but I don't know the exact proces of all garbage to have a proper idea to what the effects are.

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Those requlations go against the natural tendancy of the fishing industries, and are largely a consequence of the environmental movement in the 60s and 70s.  When environmentalism goes out of vogue, so will those regulations.
If envirolism goes out of vogue, the hunting on seals will also legal. And as a fisherman thinks less seals is more fish. There could stay a proper amount of fish that way, seals will probably also stay, they have tried before to kill them out, but atleast there will be less in number.

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Actually, human growth does seem to have a natural sense of carrying capacity, at least in industrialized areas with ample supply of birth control and a social acceptance.  Europe's birth rate, I believe, is in strong decline.  Apparently economic pressures might actually be sufficient to limit human growth, when birth control allows parents to choose to conceive or not.  But it remains to be seen if this birth rate decline is just a short term fad or a long term trend, and wether this self-limiting growth is universal to humanity or a side-effect of the rather liberal European culture.
Yes true, but saying the colonist have set on particular ilands they lived on, different kind of animals like chickens and pigs. Them seem harmless but they where better in surviving then the natural spicies as history has proved, and humans always had enough to eat. If they keep pigs from going wild, they will keep coming back. So in first they had an explosion of capacity everywhere new colonists came.
And about europa's birth rate, yes it is low. Every rich country has a low birthrate. I believe america population is keeping stable becouse of the immigrates they have, without them population would probably drop.

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Like we did with the Tasmanian tiger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacine)?  Zoos are only barely beginning to reach a break even point with animal breeding.  It wasn't all that long ago that most zoo specimens were hunted from the wild.  Go to your local zoo and find out how many of the animals were born in captivity.  I'll bet you anything that it's in the far minority.  Plus, populations need a large gene pool to remain stable.  Zoos have to spend a lot of money to get breeding pairs together.  It's just not economically viable as a long term solution.  Zoos are not the way to ensure long term species survival.
Barely begining?, well I am pretty sure most of them are born in capitiviy. There are even some zoos making money out of the animals. I know some have been on the discussion of some animals that didn't had strong genes becouse in the beginning anything that was born was good and they went further with those. Even with some strange combination like Lion+tiger->lijgers(dutch name, haven't got a clue what the english name is).
And economally speaken, there are even some zoos making money selling their pure breed animals.
Main problem could be the large gene pool, I dunno.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 06, 2008, 03:26:56 PM
Quote from: Peter
Well the greenhouse effect takes more into account then just the CO2 amout. The thickness of atmosphere, other greenhouse-gasses and their amout in atomosphere. You could compare the two closest planets, mars and venus. Both have a very high CO2-percentage in atmosphere. Venus is hot and mars is cold.

I think the distance to the sun is the main reason for the different temperatures between mars and venus. Earth happens to be at just the right distance, but it's a delicate balance that tend to tip a little back and forth through earth's history.

When I was looking up 'The Global Warming Swindle' to post a link to it, I discovered their were more info to be had, but still nothing to convince me the global warming is man made, only that I got more confused what to believe.
One thing I find strange is that when earth causes lots of green house gases to appear in the atmosphere the earth gets cooler, like the eruption at Mt Toba 74000 years ago that immedeately caused an ice age, but when WE through out those gases, which is just a tiny amount what earth causes, we're supposed to believe it makes earth hotter. It makes no sense at all! It's obvious that the more particles in the atmosphere the cooler it gets.
Another thing I thought about what could be causing the earth to get warmer is all the buildings covering the planet that gives away heat, all the cars, tons of planes spewing out hot waste in the air, not to mension all billions of walking radiators, the people. If you live in the northern hemisphere and been taking a stroll through the woods a winter evening, you can feel it gets warmer when you go into the city.

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I haven't heard of any farmland to get turned into desert suddenly. If it turns into desert why doesn't the forest do so.

I guess you've also missed the tree planting project in Africa trying to stop Sahara taking over because they chopped down too many trees to make farmlands.  
They're doing it in South America too, but it will be damn boring to walk through and nothing to see. Trees binds the soil and keep it moist!
There's only two choices here, diversity or nothing!
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Numsgil on January 06, 2008, 04:14:01 PM
So. Much.  Willful.  Ignorance.  It's giving me an aneurysm.  

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Well the greenhouse effect takes more into account then just the CO2 amout. The thickness of atmosphere, other greenhouse-gasses and their amout in atomosphere. You could compare the two closest planets, mars and venus. Both have a very high CO2-percentage in atmosphere. Venus is hot and mars is cold. Venus got a thick atmosphere and mars a thin one. Maybe humans have an effect on global temperature but I highly doubt that it is an measurable effect humands have. And I think only future can bring the truth, about how the effect of humans was/is.

The greenhouse effect only deals with greenhouse gases.  You're right that atmosphere thickness plays a roll in temperature too, but Earth's atmosphere hasn't suddenly become thicker, so that wouldn't be a good explanation for the observed warming (about 1 degree celcius).

CO2 levels, on the other hand, are at an all time high over the last several hundred thousand years.  The other greenhouse gases are also in flux: ozone, water vapor, and methane.  All are being modified by human activity either directly or indirectly.

The amount of temperature differences each gas cause are well known, and have been for over 100 years.  As are the mechanics of this warming.  This isn't guess work, these guys know what they're doing.  Not all of the observed warming might be man-made, but you can bet that a significant portion of it is.

In truth, I consider it the pinnacle of naivite to assume that thousands of years of human activity have had no effect on the planet.  It'd be like if instead of throwing your garbage away you just through it in the backyard and wonder why your yard is so trashed.  It's all a closed system.

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How much knowledge do we have in the change of average temperatures
Alot.  People have had thermometers for quite a while.  Before that, we have ice core data.  The neat thing is that the ice core data syncs up with the data our thermometers gave, so we know the ice cores are a reliable source of information on temperature trends.  See Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cores).

Now, the nice thing about ice cores is that not only can they show us temperature, but they can show us CO2 concentrations.  And the funny thing is that the two seem to rise and fall together.  See this graph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png).  Of course, that doesn't automatically mean that one causes the other.  But there's definately a connection.  And there's the greenhouse effect to suggest that CO2 causes the temperature changes.

Last century was hotter than the one before.  And it had alot more CO2.  So we seem to be following the same connection.  It would be naive to dismiss off-hand that the two are related.

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I had seen some graphic lieing around somewhere that would show that the increase in temperature we have now isn't very unusual, poorly I can't find it back

Right now is among the hottest times in the last 500 thousand years.  So define unusual.

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The irish potato famine, well that could even happen right now in any country.

Exactly my point.  Because all of our crops are basically clones, they're extremely susceptible to diseases and other issues.

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With today subsidion on green petrol/alcohol well fuel. The prices for the particular crops has rissen. Meaning that every not rich country could await disaster. I don't know where exactly in america you live but I try to get a country close, look at mexico. The higher prices will probably couse for the upcoming jears to have a foodshortage in mexico. A lot of their crops will go to america for the green fuels.
The upcoming jears you could have a complete and possible worse irish famine if there came an unknown desease like happened there.

Food economics is really weird.  The federal government subsidizes American farmers not to grow food.  The weird thing about food is that the more you grow, the less money you make.  That's part of what caused the great depression in the 30s.  So basically America is way below capacity on food production.  If a viable biodiesel market arose, it wouldn't have profound effects on the price of food.  The US also taxes imported food (sugar especially), which makes up a large part of the cost of food in America.  It's the reason soda uses corn syrup instead of sugar.  All the government would have to do is readjust its policies to assume for a greater demand.  Prices would change very little.

However, biodiesel is missing the point.  While it does remove our dependance on oil, it still polutes and produces CO2.  Meaning it's not a solution to global warming.  It's more a political lifesaver than an environmental one.

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There is a reason there is a forest in amazon and there isn't in sahara. The slash and burn policy couses to just get suddenly some farmland. And to my idea it works there is farmland and it stays. I haven't heard of any farmland to get turned into desert suddenly. If it turns into desert why doesn't the forest do so.

Your ignorance startles me.  Slash and burn only works for a couple of growing seasons before the soil wears out and the farmer has to go slash and burn some new ground.  Soil in rain forests is extremely poor in nutrients.  Slash and burn is not a sustainable practice, whatever your attitude towards environmentalism.  See Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn).

Second, the Amazon is extremely susceptible to drought.  While sahara is probably an exageration, it could easily turn in to something between a savannah and desert.  The forest would take centuries to grow back.  See Impact of Amazon drought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Rainforest#Impact_of_Amazon_drought).

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the effects of older products will eventual wear off

You're talking centuries to thousands of years.  If then.  Plastics might never decompose.

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Today products have got a lott of toxic-testing and other stuff. It is just better then it use to be. There exists some volatile toxic chemicals in household products, but I haven't heard of anyone eating then. A pound of lead in my monitor, that is a lot. The inproperly dispose is a bad point but I don't know the exact proces of all garbage to have a proper idea to what the effects are.

The issue isn't people eating monitors  .  The issue is that improperly disposed electronics, and other gadgets, with "safely sealed" toxins will eventually leak and poison the ground water.  Or get burned in 3rd world countries as they try to harvest used copper, resulting in all that crap being airborne.

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If envirolism goes out of vogue, the hunting on seals will also legal. And as a fisherman thinks less seals is more fish. There could stay a proper amount of fish that way, seals will probably also stay, they have tried before to kill them out, but atleast there will be less in number.

Tell me you don't really believe that.  Tell me that you're just telling a really bad joke.

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Yes true, but saying the colonist have set on particular ilands they lived on, different kind of animals like chickens and pigs. Them seem harmless but they where better in surviving then the natural spicies as history has proved, and humans always had enough to eat. If they keep pigs from going wild, they will keep coming back. So in first they had an explosion of capacity everywhere new colonists came.

I think you're confusing a population explosion with repopulation.  Usually when European explorers arrived somewhere, a huge chunk of the native population got killed.  The Europeans could then easily colonize the oddly "empty" land.  See this article (http://www.usna.edu/Users/history/kolp/HH345/PRE1492.HTM).

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And about europa's birth rate, yes it is low. Every rich country has a low birthrate. I believe america population is keeping stable becouse of the immigrates they have, without them population would probably drop.

Exactly my point.  It's possible that there's a natural economic force that keeps the human population at a stable carrying capacity.  As there's more people, the cost of raising a kid increases and so families don't have quite so many.  Thanks to birth control, they can make that choice.  But since reliable birth control is fairly new, it has yet to be seen if this is a long term trend.  Let's hope it is, since it would demonstate that humanity does have some natural self restraint on a global level.

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Barely begining?, well I am pretty sure most of them are born in capitiviy. There are even some zoos making money out of the animals. I know some have been on the discussion of some animals that didn't had strong genes becouse in the beginning anything that was born was good and they went further with those. Even with some strange combination like Lion+tiger->lijgers(dutch name, haven't got a clue what the english name is).
And economally speaken, there are even some zoos making money selling their pure breed animals.
Main problem could be the large gene pool, I dunno.

I was wrong about captive breeding.  This article (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dallan/nre220/outline23.htm) says over 90% of mammal species in zoos are born in captivity.  However, the fact remains that it's an expensive and labor intensive process of keeping a viable zoo population.  It's really much easier if the animals have a stable natural habitat.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 08, 2008, 03:06:43 PM
Quote from: Numsgil
So. Much.  Willful.  Ignorance.  It's giving me an aneurysm.
Hmmm, is this an insult. It sounds like it.
Quote from wiki
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Ignorance or nescience is a lack of knowledge. Ignorance is sometimes misinterpreted as a synonym of stupidity, and is as thus often taken as an insult.
So Numsgil are you saying I don't know much, are you saying I am stupid.
It makes me sad  , someone on the internet says my school did a poor job.

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The greenhouse effect only deals with greenhouse gases.  You're right that atmosphere thickness plays a roll in temperature too, but Earth's atmosphere hasn't suddenly become thicker, so that wouldn't be a good explanation for the observed warming (about 1 degree celcius).
WRONG.
The [I]greenhouse[/I] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect) effect doesn't just deal with greenhouse gasses.
First line english wikipedia.
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The greenhouse effect is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet's surface.
Where do you see that it only affects greenhouse gasses. Thickness of enviroment is in fact a main part of the greenhouse effect. More thick also more CO2 meaning more atombs CO2 but no extra percentage. Not taking thickness into the seeing of greenhouse is purely seeing blind.

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CO2 levels, on the other hand, are at an all time high over the last several hundred thousand years.  The other greenhouse gases are also in flux: ozone, water vapor, and methane.  All are being modified by human activity either directly or indirectly.
You're wrong, ozone is not a greenhouse gas, it absorbs UV no IR. And oxygen is also a greenhouse gas. You forgot oxygen, shame on you.
I wonder if nitrogen-gas(well, I mean N2) is a greenhouse gas also.

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The amount of temperature differences each gas cause are well known, and have been for over 100 years.  As are the mechanics of this warming.  This isn't guess work, these guys know what they're doing.  Not all of the observed warming might be man-made, but you can bet that a significant portion of it is.
If those guys know what they are doing and they can exactly say how it works and prove it, why are there still scientists saying the opposite of it. I say it is gues-work, some kind of propaganda of certain scientists, I mean is Al Gore a scientist, well no, he had some scientists behind him I believe. The movie he made, can easy be said as it was propaganda, he has got some facts, CO2 and temperature grahps. From only that he made that human coused the whole temperature increase, and that it would couse many disaters, and that they all would be coused by humans. He earned much money out of it, he won the nobel-price, if I am not wrong the nobel-price is worth 1,6 milion euro. More out of a politican case than that he was enviromental right. There are also in much cases subsidions being given if you had a reseach to underbuild the enlarged greenhouse-effect.

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In truth, I consider it the pinnacle of naivite to assume that thousands of years of human activity have had no effect on the planet.  It'd be like if instead of throwing your garbage away you just through it in the backyard and wonder why your yard is so trashed.  It's all a closed system.
Well, the planet is still just as big, it consists out of desame atombs. Pretty much desame atmosphere. So you call me the pinnapple of 'naivite'(is this spelled correct, I typed over from you but is naivite correct?), well eh thanks.

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Alot.  People have had thermometers for quite a while.  Before that, we have ice core data.  The neat thing is that the ice core data syncs up with the data our thermometers gave, so we know the ice cores are a reliable source of information on temperature trends.  See Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cores).

Now, the nice thing about ice cores is that not only can they show us temperature, but they can show us CO2 concentrations.  And the funny thing is that the two seem to rise and fall together.  See this graph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png).  Of course, that doesn't automatically mean that one causes the other.  But there's definately a connection.  And there's the greenhouse effect to suggest that CO2 causes the temperature changes.
Human is a blib, and the thermometers are even more a blib, ice core data gives more data yes, it is true, what does it prove. There is a connection but that could go any way, and this definitely doesn't prove it. It could even be that there is not even an connection between them and there is something else that couses both effects.
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Last century was hotter than the one before.  And it had alot more CO2.  So we seem to be following the same connection.  It would be naive to dismiss off-hand that the two are related.
Century is a complete blib, it was 400 years ago also colder then let say one thousend or twothousend years ago.

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Right now is among the hottest times in the last 500 thousand years.  So define unusual.
I would say last jear was possible the hottest time of the last 100 thousend years, and even that has for climate not that much weight, therefore you had to take an average on the last 30 years and in that average it was the hotest time since the midle-ages when there wasn't the high carbodioxide emision into the air, and that timescale isn't really a big one. I believe that if the temperature keeps stable for another ten years and that is what probably happens, we can pretty definite say this was the hottest time in 100.000 years. But what does it say, I could say it is coifidence, I could also say not, but what is the reason for it, could be anything. Not only human.

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Food economics is really weird.  The federal government subsidizes American farmers not to grow food.  The weird thing about food is that the more you grow, the less money you make.  That's part of what caused the great depression in the 30s.  So basically America is way below capacity on food production.  If a viable biodiesel market arose, it wouldn't have profound effects on the price of food.  The US also taxes imported food (sugar especially), which makes up a large part of the cost of food in America.  It's the reason soda uses corn syrup instead of sugar.  All the government would have to do is readjust its policies to assume for a greater demand.  Prices would change very little.
It is the same way in europe also there farmers are being given money to grow nothing, there was every year an minimum of 10% of the land where there may nothing be growth. The idea for it came from enviromental groups who say it supports diversity. Any way, you can make more money if you grow crops so making more money if there are less crops is pretty much robage.
Strange thing is that enviromental groups also have land where they do nothing with but get much more money per hectometer then any farmer could make with it, if the same ammount was top qualty land and he would have top quality crops. This is a main point why I am against enviromentalism, money is always wrong spent, the money that goes to many envirolism groups goes to the people that work there and with the money they spent time to get more money in.
Some others like the famous greenpeace, are doing desame they get a lot of money in from different goverments that way, and on their turn they happen to randomly destruct the economy, destroying a few companies with the actions, with the claims(about dangerous for the enviroment or simular) they make they often cost in some cases even milions to other companys, becouse the claim has to be investigated.
Okay that was the rant about greenpeace, an orginasation I uterly hate.
Well, further, next year for the first time sice 1975 when it started, the minimum amount of 'braak' land( %land that may not be used) is going to drop from 10% to 0%. That isn't for no reason.  The 'viable biodiesel market' you spoke off is already there for several years and is growing fast cousing a price rice for different products and this has already happened, in rich countrys it may happen people don't even know, but I am sure that in parts of Mexico they know and also in other parts of the world. You are pretty ignorant that you think there couldn't happen any price raises, I have read somewhere that the pricerice in Mexico was already 800%, so it is possibles.
The drop to 0% that happened in europe is really for a reason, it will couse a severe arguement with enviromental groups. The drop is certainly there for a reason, you would easily see the connection.

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However, biodiesel is missing the point.  While it does remove our dependance on oil, it still polutes and produces CO2.  Meaning it's not a solution to global warming.  It's more a political lifesaver than an environmental one.
It doesn't produce CO2, point. The plants absorb CO2 and with it they store energie in themself, the same amount it produces. There isn't a process human made that negatively produce CO2 as far I know. But what you said was wrong.

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Your ignorance startles me.  Slash and burn only works for a couple of growing seasons before the soil wears out and the farmer has to go slash and burn some new ground.  Soil in rain forests is extremely poor in nutrients.  Slash and burn is not a sustainable practice, whatever your attitude towards environmentalism.  See Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn).

Second, the Amazon is extremely susceptible to drought.  While sahara is probably an exageration, it could easily turn in to something between a savannah and desert.  The forest would take centuries to grow back.  See Impact of Amazon drought (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Rainforest#Impact_of_Amazon_drought).
Soil can be made more rich with different agriculture techniques. Secondly sahara is a desert amazone is not. Amazon has more rain then sahara. The amount of sunenergie is, I think, also lower. So you can agree I think that you can't compare it with eachother. Further you do forget the human activity on it. They will not let it become desert that fast, as earlier stated places to grow crops are becoming more priceful, if the farmers there won't care about the land, a dozan companies will come and take over the land, they will threat it well, you can bet on that, not threating it well is very stupid especially economic.
Oh the point slash and burn, the burning gets pretty fast an rich ground that could be used for a few years if you don't treat the ground well enough, if you do threat it well it will stay rich, Like I see it notihing complicated, very simple.

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You're talking centuries to thousands of years.  If then.  Plastics might never decompose.
If plactics don't decompose they aren't a harm too, you can eat a stone but it goes out exactly desame the other way(if you're lucky). Some additives could be bad, but just as the plastics they have comparely lots of energie, enough to get a few bacteria that possible going to eat it. They eat oil too. Plastice could be more difficult, but possible.

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The issue isn't people eating monitors  .  The issue is that improperly disposed electronics, and other gadgets, with "safely sealed" toxins will eventually leak and poison the ground water.  Or get burned in 3rd world countries as they try to harvest used copper, resulting in all that crap being airborne.
Yes, I know the isue wasn't people eating monitors.   There was only half a line saying that nobody ate them. And as I said I don't know the exact procedure of waste disposel. I can't really make a point there, I can just say, that you are right. I can't deny that. I don't know in what loads it goes good or goes wrong.

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Tell me you don't really believe that.  Tell me that you're just telling a really bad joke.
No, why would I say that. What didn't you like what I believed, what I thought or my way of thinking.

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I think you're confusing a population explosion with repopulation.  Usually when European explorers arrived somewhere, a huge chunk of the native population got killed.  The Europeans could then easily colonize the oddly "empty" land.  See this article (http://www.usna.edu/Users/history/kolp/HH345/PRE1492.HTM).
Well, no I really meant 'really' empty lands. Small ilands, where no human lived, you know the famous bird dodo, well he had no humans around. I was particulair speaking of that colonists setted up pigs an other animals on multiple small ilands, for possible in case in the future they had a ship wrecked. I wasn't speaking about the possible amount of native people that where killed when the colonists arive, mainly the complete diversity-kill at smaller ilands.

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Exactly my point.  It's possible that there's a natural economic force that keeps the human population at a stable carrying capacity.  As there's more people, the cost of raising a kid increases and so families don't have quite so many.  Thanks to birth control, they can make that choice.  But since reliable birth control is fairly new, it has yet to be seen if this is a long term trend.  Let's hope it is, since it would demonstate that humanity does have some natural self restraint on a global level.
I agree, If it isn't a long term trend, I am afraid, there have to be worldwide regulations about the amount of children.

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I was wrong about captive breeding.  This article (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dallan/nre220/outline23.htm) says over 90% of mammal species in zoos are born in captivity.  However, the fact remains that it's an expensive and labor intensive process of keeping a viable zoo population.  It's really much easier if the animals have a stable natural habitat.
You where wrong, wou where wrong . Then about the fact it is expensive, a very high building like let say the WTC(world trade center) used to be. It is expensive, but it is economicly rendable. I don't know the exact numbers of subsidions the zoos get, but the zoos do exist today, ofcource it is more easy to have a giant piece of land and just let the animals be. That is not the point.
You just forget to mension the point about diversity in a specie and stuff like that coused by a small group on animals that exist in zoos and that have to stop from extinction. You can argue about that it is really bad for a specie, or it is good enough. Is there a possibility that the animals ever could be set back in wild, is it bad if not. Is it good to keep endangered species in zoos to keep them from exstinction or is it against nature.
I don't really have an opinion about if it is good or bad.

You could read over it so, let's see what makes letters big.

Testlund
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I think the distance to the sun is the main reason for the different temperatures between mars and venus. Earth happens to be at just the right distance, but it's a delicate balance that tend to tip a little back and forth through earth's history.
I think it is a combination between distance and the greenhouse effect(where thickness takes in part). Venus is the hottest planet of the solar-system but it is the second planet. Venus is a lot hotter then it would be just of distance.
Venus : closer, thicker atmosphere.
Mars : Further , thin atmosphere.

If venus was at the place of mars and mars at the place of venus. It would be very difficult to see whitch planet would be the hottest. I would bet on the closer place, I believe distance is the main factor. But I believe atmosphere is pretty important too.

Also if anyone can find something about the so called amazone-desert. For example is there already a little part of converted to desert/savanne. Please post. I do like to know if the used to be forest really could chance into desert.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Numsgil on January 09, 2008, 01:27:55 AM
Quote from: Peter
Quote from: Numsgil
So. Much.  Willful.  Ignorance.  It's giving me an aneurysm.
Hmmm, is this an insult. It sounds like it.

I'm saying that you must be willfully ignorant, because some of your assertions are so far off base that it boggles my mind.  I meant it not as an insult but as a chastisement (sp?).

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The greenhouse effect only deals with greenhouse gases.  You're right that atmosphere thickness plays a roll in temperature too, but Earth's atmosphere hasn't suddenly become thicker, so that wouldn't be a good explanation for the observed warming (about 1 degree celcius).
WRONG.

A thicker atmosphere just changes the planet's specific heat, ie: the amount of energy it can absorb without changing temperature dramatically.  By itself an atmosphere of N2 would have no greenhouse effect.  It would just take a long time to heat up or cool down.

But yes, if the atmosphere is thicker because it has more greenhouse gases, it would have a larger greenhouse effect.

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CO2 levels, on the other hand, are at an all time high over the last several hundred thousand years.  The other greenhouse gases are also in flux: ozone, water vapor, and methane.  All are being modified by human activity either directly or indirectly.
You're wrong, ozone is not a greenhouse gas, it absorbs UV no IR. And oxygen is also a greenhouse gas. You forgot oxygen, shame on you.
I wonder if nitrogen-gas(well, I mean N2) is a greenhouse gas also.
I'm not crazy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#Ozone_as_a_greenhouse_gas).  Also, according to Wiki: "The major atmospheric constituents (nitrogen, N2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N2) and oxygen, O2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2)) are not greenhouse gases. This is because homonuclear diatomic molecules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomic) such as N2 and O2 neither absorb nor emit infrared (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared) radiation, as there is no net change in the dipole moment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole_moment) of these molecules when they vibrate."

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why are there still scientists saying the opposite of it.
There's like one or two for real scientists who say that.  And a lot of crackpots.  Every scientific organization says that man made global warming accounts for the majority of the observed warming.  Even the guys who say it could be solar effects are saying that at best half the observed warming is solar.

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I mean is Al Gore a scientist, well no, he had some scientists behind him I believe. The movie he made, can easy be said as it was propaganda, he has got some facts, CO2 and temperature grahps. From only that he made that human coused the whole temperature increase, and that it would couse many disaters, and that they all would be coused by humans.

Al Gore didn't invent this idea.  It's not new.  It's been a major concern in science since at least the 60s.  People just didn't seem to care that much before the movie.  Go figure.  Gore only used a small fraction of the evidence for global warming in his video.  The parts that are easy for lay people to understand.  Your right that it is propoganda.  It plays on people's emotions to influence them to change.  It just so happens that this propoganda is also strongly supported with empiracle evidence.

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He earned much money out of it, he won the nobel-price, if I am not wrong the nobel-price is worth 1,6 milion euro.

He was independantly wealthy before this.  And the nobel prize wasn't for the movie.  It was for an entire career dedicated to this.  I'll bet anything he's either donated the money to charity or is using it on enviro-friendly causes.  He's not doing this to make money.  It basically cost him the US Presidency in 2000.

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There are also in much cases subsidions being given if you had a reseach to underbuild the enlarged greenhouse-effect.

You got that backwards.  The oil companies are the ones spending money supporting anti-greenhouse research.  Sort of like the Tobacco industry 30 years ago.  Don't ever trust research that supports the funder.  it's just bad science.

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Human is a blib, and the thermometers are even more a blib, ice core data gives more data yes, it is true, what does it prove. There is a connection but that could go any way, and this definitely doesn't prove it. It could even be that there is not even an connection between them and there is something else that couses both effects.

Yes, that's possible.  But this is part of a lot of other data.  It all points to the same conclusion.  It's still possible that the planet will stabalize and humanity won't have to do anything.  Do you want to bet billions of lives on it?

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Last century was hotter than the one before.  And it had alot more CO2.  So we seem to be following the same connection.  It would be naive to dismiss off-hand that the two are related.
Century is a complete blib, it was 400 years ago also colder then let say one thousend or twothousend years ago.

Yes, it was colder 400 years ago.  And it was colder 1K-2K years ago.  Right now is the hottest time of recorded human history.  It's hotter than the medieval warm period.  It's hot.

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I would say last jear was possible the hottest time of the last 100 thousend years, and even that has for climate not that much weight, therefore you had to take an average on the last 30 years and in that average it was the hotest time since the midle-ages when there wasn't the high carbodioxide emision into the air, and that timescale isn't really a big one. I believe that if the temperature keeps stable for another ten years and that is what probably happens, we can pretty definite say this was the hottest time in 100.000 years. But what does it say, I could say it is coifidence, I could also say not, but what is the reason for it, could be anything. Not only human.

Okay, the last 30 years have been hotter than any previous 30 year period in the history of man.  Or if not the hottest, damn near close to the hottest.  It's still hotter than the medieval warm period.

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Any way, you can make more money if you grow crops so making more money if there are less crops is pretty much robage.

It's weird, so I don't blame you for being skeptical.  Basically what happens is that as you grow more (and everyone else grows more), the supply of food outpaces its demand, and the price drops dramatically.  The result is that farmers as a whole make less money than if they didn't grow as much.  I think it's called a negative price elasticity or something like that.  Most products operate on a positive price elasticity, so the more you produce the more you make, generally speaking.

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Strange thing is that enviromental groups also have land where they do nothing with but get much more money per hectometer then any farmer could make with it, if the same ammount was top qualty land and he would have top quality crops. This is a main point why I am against enviromentalism, money is always wrong spent, the money that goes to many envirolism groups goes to the people that work there and with the money they spent time to get more money in.

Except that environmental groups are not-for-profits.  Meaning that they're carefully regulated by governments.  If they were suddenly making all kinds of money, like you assert, they wouldn't be able to claim not-for-profit status, and their taxes would suddenly balloon.  If they make money at all, it's through donations from rich environmentalists, like Al Gore.

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Well, further, next year for the first time sice 1975 when it started, the minimum amount of 'braak' land( %land that may not be used) is going to drop from 10% to 0%. That isn't for no reason.  The 'viable biodiesel market' you spoke off is already there for several years and is growing fast cousing a price rice for different products and this has already happened, in rich countrys it may happen people don't even know, but I am sure that in parts of Mexico they know and also in other parts of the world. You are pretty ignorant that you think there couldn't happen any price raises, I have read somewhere that the pricerice in Mexico was already 800%, so it is possibles.

Prices are actually dropping in Mexico.  You see, the US suddenly has decided that it doesn't like it's open door policy with Mexico, and so it requires a lot of work to get food imported from Mexico.  Meaning that the Mexican farmers have no market for their food.  Their on hand supply rises, and they're forced to drop prices to keep selling it.  A price increase in food would be great for the mostly Agrarian Mexico.  Price increases in food are good for farmers.  They're just bad for (poor) urban populations.

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The drop to 0% that happened in europe is really for a reason, it will couse a severe arguement with enviromental groups. The drop is certainly there for a reason, you would easily see the connection.

I don't know European economics, but I have a hard time believing that 100% of arable land will be farmed.  Can you provide a reference?

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It doesn't produce CO2, point. The plants absorb CO2 and with it they store energie in themself, the same amount it produces. There isn't a process human made that negatively produce CO2 as far I know. But what you said was wrong.

This is actually really complex.  But yes, I forgot that the plants used for biodiesel pulled CO2 from the atmosphere the growing season before.  Meaning that in theory, it shouldn't produce a net increase in CO2 levels.

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Soil can be made more rich with different agriculture techniques. Secondly sahara is a desert amazone is not. Amazon has more rain then sahara. The amount of sunenergie is, I think, also lower. So you can agree I think that you can't compare it with eachother. Further you do forget the human activity on it. They will not let it become desert that fast, as earlier stated places to grow crops are becoming more priceful, if the farmers there won't care about the land, a dozan companies will come and take over the land, they will threat it well, you can bet on that, not threating it well is very stupid especially economic.
Oh the point slash and burn, the burning gets pretty fast an rich ground that could be used for a few years if you don't treat the ground well enough, if you do threat it well it will stay rich, Like I see it notihing complicated, very simple.

Did you read the links I used?  I'm not making this up.  The Amazon basin could easily turn in to a vast scrubland, with a fertile river running through the middle.

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If plactics don't decompose they aren't a harm too, you can eat a stone but it goes out exactly desame the other way(if you're lucky). Some additives could be bad, but just as the plastics they have comparely lots of energie, enough to get a few bacteria that possible going to eat it. They eat oil too. Plastice could be more difficult, but possible.

Human garbage in the environment is bad.  I don't think I need to defend that position.  If we're lucky maybe a bacteria will learn to eat plastic, but don't hold your breath.

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If it isn't a long term trend, I am afraid, there have to be worldwide regulations about the amount of children.

Ugh, let's hope it doesn't come to that.  Then we'd have to fight a war with an alien bug race, and recruit children to fight the war, and then get saved by a "Third".  And no one wants that

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Also if anyone can find something about the so called amazone-desert. For example is there already a little part of converted to desert/savanne. Please post. I do like to know if the used to be forest really could chance into desert.

Get on google earth and try to find the columbia border in south america.  I think it's columbia.  Could be honduras and belize.  Anyway, you can see on one side of the border is grassland savannah, and the other side is dense forest.
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Testlund on January 09, 2008, 09:55:16 AM
I'm going to tell you why there are so many people who don't care about the environment, Peter.
It's because they are used to somebody else taking care of all problems. The garbage man always come to pick up your garbage to take it away out of your sight. The waste water gets flushed away out of your area, and if the crop growth goes bad you just move and start over somewhere else.
Now, imagine that the garbage man stops coming. The pipes for waste water gets cut and starts flush it up to your backyard instead. The border closes so you can't move away. What will you do? How many years do you think you can stand living on that spot? I bet you would become an environmentalist damn fast!
Did you know that they are now sending trash on big boats to Africa because there aren't any places left in their home countries to dump it?
This planet is getting overloaded! And there is no longer anywhere to move because it's all crowded with people already doing the same thing with their place as the one you fled from.
Do you know what happend to Easter Island? What happend there is what will eventually happen to the whole planet.
We can't just keep on moving somewhere else all the time.

Here's a link to Easter Island on the Wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island...f_the_ecosystem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island#Destruction_of_the_ecosystem)
Title: Product designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: Peter on January 09, 2008, 04:31:52 PM
Quote from: Numsgil
I'm saying that you must be willfully ignorant, because some of your assertions are so far off base that it boggles my mind.  I meant it not as an insult but as a chastisement (sp?).
Well, I can say I learnt a new word 'chastisement' I try to remember the definition.  

And 'willfully ignorant', are you saying I am purposely ignoring facts. A well me sleepy me don't care. I try to answer soon now.

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A thicker atmosphere just changes the planet's specific heat, ie: the amount of energy it can absorb without changing temperature dramatically.  By itself an atmosphere of N2 would have no greenhouse effect.  It would just take a long time to heat up or cool down.

But yes, if the atmosphere is thicker because it has more greenhouse gases, it would have a larger greenhouse effect.

I'm not crazy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#Ozone_as_a_greenhouse_gas).  Also, according to Wiki: "The major atmospheric constituents (nitrogen, N2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N2) and oxygen, O2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2)) are not greenhouse gases. This is because homonuclear diatomic molecules (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomic) such as N2 and O2 neither absorb nor emit infrared (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared) radiation, as there is no net change in the dipole moment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole_moment) of these molecules when they vibrate."
Lots of links. I'll add one I just seen. Solar radiation spectrum (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Solar_Spectrum.png), the yellow area's are absorbed and the red goes through, I'd have to use the favorites tab more often, to quickly see where I found that oxygen in a greenhouse gas, but you see it also in this graph. I'll look later for real facts. If you tend to react to the link, please keep yours in it, me too lazy to type in oxygen  .

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There's like one or two for real scientists who say that.  And a lot of crackpots.  Every scientific organization says that man made global warming accounts for the majority of the observed warming.  Even the guys who say it could be solar effects are saying that at best half the observed warming is solar.

Al Gore didn't invent this idea.  It's not new.  It's been a major concern in science since at least the 60s.  People just didn't seem to care that much before the movie.  Go figure.  Gore only used a small fraction of the evidence for global warming in his video.  The parts that are easy for lay people to understand.  Your right that it is propoganda.  It plays on people's emotions to influence them to change.  It just so happens that this propoganda is also strongly supported with empiracle evidence.

He was independantly wealthy before this.  And the nobel prize wasn't for the movie.  It was for an entire career dedicated to this.  I'll bet anything he's either donated the money to charity or is using it on enviro-friendly causes.  He's not doing this to make money.  It basically cost him the US Presidency in 2000.

You got that backwards.  The oil companies are the ones spending money supporting anti-greenhouse research.  Sort of like the Tobacco industry 30 years ago.  Don't ever trust research that supports the funder.  it's just bad science.
Can you say that the movie has really made people change, I don't think. Maybe they think about the issue but have they changed, not that I believe that human really coused the big part of the global warming neither that people could change the futore. But have people really changed. Have they used less pertrol are they traveling less, do they use less electricity, or let I ask this different, do you.
And it is rather ironic Al Gore himself uses a lot of energie, and no I can't see a way he can have an good answer to it.
I would almost think that he just likes the publicity, the money doesn't matter, the film doesn't have an effect to my idea. What is left.


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Yes, that's possible.  But this is part of a lot of other data.  It all points to the same conclusion.  It's still possible that the planet will stabalize and humanity won't have to do anything.  Do you want to bet billions of lives on it?

Yes, it was colder 400 years ago.  And it was colder 1K-2K years ago.  Right now is the hottest time of recorded human history.  It's hotter than the medieval warm period.  It's hot.
In my opinion human can't do anything, even if it where true. So betting is out of the question. I meant during the colder time that was 400 years ago, it was colder then 1k or 2k years ago. But your statement is right.

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Okay, the last 30 years have been hotter than any previous 30 year period in the history of man.  Or if not the hottest, damn near close to the hottest.  It's still hotter than the medieval warm period.
Well okay, yes your right. I have mislooked, it is today warmer then in the medieval warm period, as I also see standing here (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html). It is still not hotter then 100.000 years ago. I keep my point about 'what does it mean?'


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It's weird, so I don't blame you for being skeptical.  Basically what happens is that as you grow more (and everyone else grows more), the supply of food outpaces its demand, and the price drops dramatically.  The result is that farmers as a whole make less money than if they didn't grow as much.  I think it's called a negative price elasticity or something like that.  Most products operate on a positive price elasticity, so the more you produce the more you make, generally speaking.
Well I think I do understand, not fully but that is hard for every market.
Food industry works at world scale, the times everybodys crops around the world grow good is rare. Therefore you never know when there are many or when there are lesser. Any farmer in america jumps and is happy if it goes wrong in australia and the reverse is also right, and of course in europe we're also happy if it goes wrong is america and the reverse is also right. Making a complicated market where there is much trading going on. Any trader could gamble on a bad harvest and try to win money. With grain reserves and alike they keep to have the price stable it isn't like when you harvest more you get less. It is true if it goes on for multiple years, then the price have to drop and there will be less farmers becouse many already know when the price is low.
Already confused, well I am, seems strange but everything is walking through eachother. And I probably missed some importend points.
There are many farmers, much other products have much less suppliers. Together with a product that is unstable. You could make profit one year and lose the other one. And a crop-farm has to invest the whole year and get it all out it the last months very unpredictable.
Very simple you make more money if you're a bigger farmer then a smaller one. Farm-land makes money. More land makes more money, with the extra crop demand there is going to be, the extra amazone area could become profitable.
Comparely to other sectors the in the farming, the profit-percentages are lower mainly becouse they tend to outcompete eachother. If everyone tries to produce much they all could suffer.

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Except that environmental groups are not-for-profits.  Meaning that they're carefully regulated by governments.  If they were suddenly making all kinds of money, like you assert, they wouldn't be able to claim not-for-profit status, and their taxes would suddenly balloon.  If they make money at all, it's through donations from rich environmentalists, like Al Gore.
Well, regulated by goverment, I tend to find it awfully strange that in the Netherlands(not sure about other countrys), many old politicans are working in higher places in enviromental organisation and are earning a lot of money with it. Would it be ethical to draw the line further, I wonder. Well let you draw it.

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Prices are actually dropping in Mexico.  You see, the US suddenly has decided that it doesn't like it's open door policy with Mexico, and so it requires a lot of work to get food imported from Mexico.  Meaning that the Mexican farmers have no market for their food.  Their on hand supply rises, and they're forced to drop prices to keep selling it.  A price increase in food would be great for the mostly Agrarian Mexico.  Price increases in food are good for farmers.  They're just bad for (poor) urban populations.
I have read that they have risen, and that the '(poor) urban populations' like you call it was having food schortage. I really have to use favorites.  bashing myself.

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I don't know European economics, but I have a hard time believing that 100% of arable land will be farmed.  Can you provide a reference?
Trouble is that it is setted up pretty recently, facts is that the farmers don't get a penny if they don't use it next growing season and draw the conclusion. Keep also in mind it has been a ragulation, settup up in 1975 and it just suddenly without warning it has changed for the first time if I am not wrong, and too inmidiatly to 0%. I would give you the link but I don't know the english word for 'braak'(unused) land. And I gues you don't know dutch.

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Did you read the links I used?  I'm not making this up.  The Amazon basin could easily turn in to a vast scrubland, with a fertile river running through the middle.
I have read some links, I am going to look at them later to be sure if I missed something.

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Ugh, let's hope it doesn't come to that.  Then we'd have to fight a war with an alien bug race, and recruit children to fight the war, and then get saved by a "Third".  And no one wants that
 

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Get on google earth and try to find the columbia border in south america.  I think it's columbia.  Could be honduras and belize.  Anyway, you can see on one side of the border is grassland savannah, and the other side is dense forest.
Will I do also.
Title: Re: Interior designers should be dragged out and whipped in public!
Post by: spike43884 on November 16, 2014, 05:03:40 AM
And that, is why I will be an architect people, I only have to read the title and the first line of the first post.
But, dont hate to much on product desginers, hate on interior designers
How many times have you seen on TV, an amazing building (by an architect, because there awesome) then some weird ass interior which looks horrific, or a bedroom which looks ok, then you realise its not got a TV, a WARDROBE or a computer. My bedroom is more space-weird than most of the ones these interior designers work with, and I still have a wardrobe, many cupboards, a computer (with desk), TV on swivel, 2 fishtanks a model railway set, 2 chairs, games consoles...Space on sides for all my junk, a draw for all my various rocks...yeah...