5 Filters

Declining sperm counts: Nature's answer to overpopulation?

#1

An interesting look at the trends in population. Perhaps overpopulation isn’t a thing we need to worry about after all.

I asked at the beginning of this piece whether declining sperm counts is nature’s way of limiting human population. The current trend would not just reduce population, but lead to extinction within a century. It is as if the 2006 film Children of Men has been remade with a slightly different plot line.

An analogy for our predicament might be yeast used in wine making. The yeast at first feast on the sugars in the wine, reproducing wildly. In the process, the yeast produce alcohol as a waste product. Eventually, the fermentation process stops as the yeast consume the available sugar and as the alcohol concentration rises and eventually kills the yeast

1 Like
#2

In a very real sense true…#envirotoxins and #endocrinedistruptors are being created by us not Mother Nature…enough of the “doom-gloom” though…we can and must stop producing the cr*p…if we do we will come back into harmony with mother nature and re-establish “balance” #HansRosling…

2 Likes
#3

One of Mam’s sheaf of different negative-feedback ecosphere stabilisation techniques, P. And as Kurt speculates, the already-begun Long Descent is another. I’ve grown to thinking recently that there’s no need to obsess too much about our current overshoot episode, because it will be resolved spontaneously by these ancient Gaian correctives, even though we as a species - just as naively as yeast - can’t manage to get ourselves collectively to do anything effective about it. It would have been less painful for us, and less damaging to Gaia’s life-web if we had.

Pity, as we will probably continue for a while longer to do great damage to the life-web of the Earth, which is grievous. But otoh, Mam has ALWAYS pulled her planet back into refecundation, after all the previous destructive crises, and will again, I don’t doubt. Her kaleidoscopic inventiveness is endless! Even if we lose tigers to the same tragedy that extinguished the dire wolves, the poor mammoths, and so many others, there will be new marvels of beauty and lovability, on and on always, “…till” - as Dylan Thomas put it - “the Sun breaks down…” (‘And Death Shall Have No Dominion’).

And indeed it will have no final dominion even then, because the immortal souls, the steadfast life-defending, entropy-reversing agents of Big Mind, will still be around, thirsting for new venues in which to feed their passion for serial lives galore, and with a whole physical material universe of a holodeck in which to play. (At least one…) :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#4

Exactly, RG. I love how you put that. It’s taken me a while but I am gradually finding a way towards a sort of peace with our situation. Change is coming - that’s for sure - and I’m hoping that the change will, as you say, work naturally to counteract our worst offences against nature.

Cheers
PP

1 Like
#5

All of this is dependent Rhis…our responsibility is to all existence…the consciousness is emergent…if we keep playing god (and goddess!), we will be taught a salutary lesson in hubris…by ourselves…I ask you; “what could be worse than thermonuclear destruction?” still a “nuclear” war though…;“one ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them” Nine realms, nine working moons…

Frodo1

Cern experiment hints at new force of nature

Experts reveal ‘cautious excitement’ over unstable particles that fail to decay as standard model suggests https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/23/large-hadron-collider-scientists-particle-physics?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

Got to find reasons to build the bigger accelerator… this notion that numbers like 1 in 1,000 mean anything at all in this regard (no number, no matter how apparently huge, has any significance other than “relative significance”, the infinite is unbounded), and that the sub-atomic world can be reduced way beyond the three “necessary” (Dr. Masaru Emoto), components by the application of supreme violence (they live in poverty guys check their economics the imperium is in-the-buff -“unsustainable economy” is an oxymoron-), would seem to be the lie being revealed here (in other words it’s a warning sign), …“ooops got to invent a new force, a new actor on the scene”…reductio ad absurdum…This happens on the financial (and other), markets all the time…

1 Like
#6

Invention all the time, G, and all by pure chance. The Campbell doctrine reckons that until some sentient being looks at a particular dark area of unrealised manifestation, there’s nothing there at all; but when first someone does look, “a random draw from all the possibilities is taken” and that’s what the first-looker sees. Then after that, all subsequent lookers see the same thing, establishing it more and more firmly with each look.

Thus it is - I suspect - that futility-temples such as CERN create new - experimenter-invented - ‘fundamental particles’ (since strong expectation - aka unbending intent - affects the probability-profile of the initial draw directly).

All to no great purpose, though. In the early days of such creative-invention goose-chases, real technologies might be derivable from the initial raw inventions; such as nuclear fission, for example. But as the whole work of invention gets more and more bells-and-whistles baroque, instability, and finally dissolution approach; and eventually the whole created system goes the way of phlogiston and Ptolemaic astronomy, and new fashions of creation supersede them…

Rinse and repeat, without ever noticing - in all but a few hyper-perceptive-maverick cases - that there is a repeating pattern here, saying something basic about the underlying fundamentals of existent reality - as conjured by mind… :laughing:

#7

“real technologies might be derivable from the initial raw inventions; such as nuclear fission” Not sure what you mean Rhis…nuclear power has never been anything other than a bomb making exercise… (one way or the other), it certainly isn’t sustainable.

#8

As stated, G, I mean that early on in one of these knowledge-of-the-universe extension efforts, whatever turns up in the randomly-chosen creation process might be capable of affording an actually-useable technology - like nuclear fission (whatever use it’s put to) - but later in the invention-process, the tail-end creations in the sequence seem so outre that nothing much of practical use can be done with them. Witness all the elusive and ultra-short-life ‘fundamental’ particles being ‘found’ - that is: conjured into existence by unbending intent - lately with the CERN illusion-games.

1 Like
#9

I like this thought “experiment”; we are to explicate the whole of existence from a collision in a moment in time that is utterly unrepeatable…even they say that we are affected by gravitational waves etc. Do they presume that their “great experiment” can exist in isolation? I believe some of them are in-deed (more or less knowingly), engaged in “proving nothing”, all in a days work for the privileged elite…my what fine cloth they cut!

#10

““unsustainable economy” is an oxymoron” No? I thought about this…many would argue (and many on the “Left” also), that “short-term” “profit-taking” exploitative economies exist…but do they? Can we truly call them “economies”? For one thing; “how long is your piece of string?” We define economies by describing relationships (they are “relative”), there is a chronological imperative concerned*, one cannot (surely), argue that a 5 year “un-sustainability” is an economy whilst a 3 month one is not! Economy, of-course, also can be “of effort”, in other words efficient…there is no “economy of effort” in an inefficient system, therefore, we can prove that any economy that is not sustainable does not exist!

After all any “sustainable economy” will end eventually…but the tale is of Ouroboros… and the “particle worshippers” scream; “it’s there, it’s there!” It ain’t #quantum…

One can argue that the economy was sustainable over a five year period…but one cannot say it was un-sustainable for the same period…period…

…and, therefore, sustainability is a necessary component of economy…

The system is “open ended” (#opensource), it is emergent…

…correctly therefore; “the economy lasted five years!”…

…sustainability and type are the two essential components of economy…

*… time’s arrow flies in only one direction…this is how economy emerges…I’m convinced that there are both linguistic and scientific (ain’t there always), reasons for our misapprehensions concerning the nature of economy…and precisely those misapprehensions which cause us to fail to perceive the coincident (again I bemoan the current state of linguistics and etymology), nature of technology and economics…instead of working with the forces of the atom and learning from them we took it upon ourselves to try to dominate them (and have so far refused to learn anything despite making dreadful errors of judgement)…as I said the “three vitalising principles” (the Mother, Father and Child of the Old Religion -#GreenMan #JackintheGreen-), neutron, positron and electron have been ignored as we reduce our inquiry to the level (even for sophists), of the absurd… communal, social and individual, if you will, the Schumachian triumvirate… balanced in “dynamic harmony” we progress …oh Oedipus…what have you done?

A Dangerous Conflation, Socialism = Communism, Divide and Rule! #Socialism #Communism #Capitalism #Anarchism #Schumacher #G7Summit #TropesandMemes
Can someone explain crypto currency to me?
#11

Edit… "If one “economises” one makes one’s actions more efficient…literally one creates an economy.

An economy is identified only as the repetition of similar transactions over time.

One can argue that the economy existed for a five year period…but one cannot say it was “un-sustainable” for the same period…period…

…and, therefore, sustainability is a necessary component of economy…

The system is “open ended” (#opensource), it is emergent…

…correctly therefore; “the economy lasted five years!""

Quote; "Words Based on the Eco- Root Word

Following is a list of words based on the Eco- Root Word:

1. Ecoactivist: One who actively opposes the pollution or destruction by other means, of the environment.
2. Ecobabble: Using the technical language of ecology to make the user seem to be ecologically aware.
3. Ecobiology: The study of the relationships of organisms to their natural environments.
4. Ecobiosis: The conditions pertaining to a mode of life within a specific habitat
5. Ecocatastrophe: Major damage to the environment, especially when caused by human activity
6. Ecocentric: Centering on the environment
7. Bioecological: A reference to the interrelationships between plants and animals and their abiotic enviro ments.
8. Bioecologist: Someone who favors, or specializes, bioecology; such as, an ecologist.
9. Bioecology: The science of organisms as affected by the factors of their environments.
10. Ecocidal: Designed or tending to destroy the environment.
11. Ecocide: Destruction or damage of the environment
12. Ecoclimate: The climate as an ecological factor; the climate of a habitat.
13. Ecocline: Reflecting ecological conditions in general.
14. Econometrician: A student of, or specialist in, econometrics.
15. Econometrics: The branch of economics concerned with the application of mathematical economics to economic data by the use of statistical methods.
16. Economics: The study or the social science of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services and with the theory and management of economies or economic systems which include material goods and financial resources.
17. Economist: Someone who studies, works, or is an expert in the field of economics." All about Eco- Root Word: List of words based on Eco- Root Here we can see how closely related the notions of ecology and economics really are this seems to indicate that the Industrial Revolution (esp.), saw a perversion of the language describing transaction in order to underpin a basically Socially Darwinistic notion of human evolution and allow the capitalist political model to gain ascendency, in other words facilitate the imperialism of capitalism’s “manifest destiny”. It may, therefore, be the case that a misapprehension of the nature of economic theory has stemmed directly from the exploitation of non-renewable resources, thus many econometricians could well be simply spouting hot air!" https://www.arafel.co.uk/2021/06/a-dangerous-conflation-socialism.html