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Different day, same old schtick Surely, this time, that clique of tranzi panhandlers and chisellers have overstretched themselves just a bit?
The United Nations has published new predictions on the size and age of the world’s population 300 years from now.
You know what they say, there’s lies, damnable lies and then there’s UN predictions.
It says that if fertility stays at the current level, the global population could rise to 134 trillion.
134 Trillion!!??. Why not add a few more zeros? Go on, really crank it up. Why be so conservative?
The UN publishes long-range projections to help environmental scientists and policy-makers assess implications of dramatic change in world population.
And whine for more funding, of course.
The report says the increase is a clear indication that fertility levels are unsustainable.
Then make war, not love.
Has there ever been any organisation more scurrilous, more fraudulent or more transparently self-serving than that stinking, Augean mess known as the United Nations?
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But if we don’t build up the UN to become a sort of world governing body then there would be nothing left to stop individual countries acting in their narrow self interest without the formal approval of all the other contries in the world – and only after proper inspections have taken place.
If you actually read the UN reprot, it describes the 134 trillion figure as “clearly impossible.”
I suspect this is a case of a reporter looking for a headlien that would draw readers.
THe real high-end figure is 36.4 billion..which is also ridiculous.
Most UN demographic studies I’ve read (and they actually do some fairly good ones) over the last 20 years have indicated the population will peak sometime mid to late 21st century and then begin a slow decline.
However, if we get our act together and start building O’Neill colonies by the thousand, our solar system could easily support those sorts of numbers in quite a luxurious existance.
Then make war, not love
How about, make GM foods, not Organic ?
I think 134 trillion is perfectly possible spread amongst a few planets.
Oh wait ! Sorry I forgot, all doomsday predictions must assume that technology will remain constant.
Oh crikey, will there be enough bits in our subcutaneous identification chips? Or will there be a Y2.3K bug to worry about where the ID number rolls over? At least it will take our minds off the giant meteor hitting the glaciers covering europe as the global warming evaporates the seas causing flooding and drought.
Can’t these people do something useful today? Mass suicide would be a start.
Sorry, this is sloppy journalism rather than UN idiocy. The more realistic Low and Medium fertility scenarios included in the original report give more credible scenarios.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3302497.stm
Look for the enviroloonies and moonbats to concentrate on the impossible figures, though.
Martin
Martin,
You are probably right, sir. Still I stand firmly by sentiments as regards the UN.
David Carr – Me too. Britain should withdraw from the UN itself and possibly just stay with a couple of the aid agencies. Or even not bother. Just go.
Cut out the middle man and their plush offices, Mercedes, secretaries, under secretaries, subsidised housing, free petrol, blah blah blah. It would be cheaper just to spoon out aid on an individual basis. In any event, the only aid we should be giving is to children, who have no say in any matters. After they reach adulthood, they’re responsible for getting rid of their own dictators.
Why do we tolerate this?
It says that if fertility stays at the current level, the global population could rise to 134 trillion.
But in its medium-case scenario the UN sees the world’s population rising from 6.3 billion to about 9 billion in 2300.
This is a clear case of complete innumeracy and on top of that deep stupidity from a BBC journalist. (Why does this not surprise me?) The UN report is pretty much entirely about the fact that the fertility levels are falling and have been for some time. It’s pretty much along the lines of “current fertility levels would lead to absurd numbers over long periods” (as indeed will any exponential growth situation) which is why fertility levels will need to fall. This isn’t a great problem, however, as when you look at the evidence you see that they are falling, in some instances so fast that the problem may be too few people and not too many”.
The UN population projections have actually been refreshingly clear about the fact that there is no population crisis for at least a decade now. From the figures of ten years ago, the high variant is something that the world could clearly cope with, and the medium variant is no trouble at all, although reality since then has actually been closer to the low variant.
The UN is in aggregate a bloated monstrosity, but this particular agency has actually been doing a good job.
Why don’t they just say “Eleventeen zillion” if they’re just going to make shit up for the mouthbreathers?
Has there ever been any organisation more scurrilous, more fraudulent or more transparently self-serving than that stinking, Augean mess known as the United Nations?
The International Olympic Committee springs to mind…
Hey, c’mon guys… 134 Trillion is perfectly possible. We’ll all just become really small.
134 trillion is certainly manageable if humans build a Dyson sphere with an atmosphere that clings to the inside of the shell. An area of roughly 120 quadrillion square miles is enough room to spread out. I have no idea how 120quad translates into how the English count, 120 thousand billion, maybe?
– Josh
The only population that is getting too big is that of UN workers.
Jonathan L – “workers”? What do all these bureaucrats actually work at?
Verity… yeah, that’s right.. they just sit on their fat overfed arses & do nothing. Corrrrect. And our governments are so used to waste that guess what, they don’t give a damn!
You may disagree about the usefulness of the UN, but there are plenty of hardworking people employed by the UN and it’s various subsidiaries. If you disagree with the essence of what they’re doing, that’s one thing & I can respect that. But no, you enjoy directing your petty, indignant cries towards people about whom I suspect you know nothing. On the issue of pay/mercedes etc., firstly, I’ve never known anyone to get a free car off the UN; i suspect you have to be pretty high up to merit that & further, if the UN employed anything less than world-class experts, you’d probably have a go at them for having substandard incompetent staff, but if they employ world class talent (& have to pay them decently, though probably less than they’d make in private enterprise, in order to attract them in the first place), it’s yet another opportunity for you to get all worked up about “fat cats”, like some alternative grubby, envious socialist worker-waving protester.
By all means, contest the grounds upon which the UN is founded, and if you manage to achieve it’s dissolution, then the people currently employed there will probably find other employment. Most of them are intelligent and talented individuals. Until such time, taking cheap shots at the employees is like blaming steel workers for the decline in the shipbuilding industry; pointless & petty.
A_t – they are employed by a parasitic, non-accountable organisation. No one administering the UN was elected by a single taxpayer. It’s a self-perpetuating, self-aggrandising leach.
You suspect I don’t know anyone who’s ever worked at the UN. Well get unsuspected right now. I’ve met quite a few – several in overseas postings. (Although not any of the bureaucrats who stole the exeuctive restaurant in the UN in New York bare – including whole turkeys and salmon and every last scrap of silver and glassware, when someone left it open and unattended. And these are people who have CD on their cars so they don’t get tickets.) They are make-work job perpetuators. There may (or may not) be some good people in the field, but my contention is, we don’t need the field. Private companies can distribute medicines to children. The UN is a hot air factory governed by 68% ambassadors of dictatorship/kleptomaniac countries and other thuggish regimes.
If there’s a crisis in the world, the prime ministers Britain and Australia can make a conference call to the president of the United States (and maybe Spain and Poland). The UN is a gigantic trough and is totally unnecessary to the health and comfort of the human race.
“If there’s a crisis in the world, the prime ministers Britain and Australia can make a conference call to the president of the United States (and maybe Spain and Poland). The UN is a gigantic trough and is totally unnecessary to the health and comfort of the human race.”
hmm… i think you & I diverge there; I suspect this tactic is likely to concentrate lots of resentment towards us, & I for one want none of that. Plus, are you not missing out a couple of coalition members there?
A_t – Well, you didn’t come flying back with the vitriol I was expecting. That I left out a couple of Coalition members is pretty tame stuff for you. I don’t think they all have a place at the world’s top table. I think the US, the UK, Australia, China and India can manage things perfectly fine.
Yes, of course, we would be resented. Reality check: we’re already resented. We may as well be resented and effective. I could sleep perfectly well in the knowledge that Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Saudi Arabai, Zimbabwe, Syria, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Senegal et al were not busy deciding the future of the world.
Am I the only one who has spotted the central inanity of this report? Anyone who makes a prediction about anything 300 years in the future is an idiot. Reasonable extrapolations have a horizon of twenty-five years, tops. If there even are human beings in anything like their current form by the end of this century I’ll be staggered. We are on the cusp of some utterly transformative breakthroughs that make any prediction beyond aboiut 2030 meaningless. We’ll probably all be quasi-immortal man-machine hybrids by century’s end, even if we posit a fairly modest growth in our technological capabilities. Right now, ten years is an eternity in technical advances. Three hundred years? Don’t make me laugh.
I have no idea how 120quad translates into how the English count, 120 thousand billion, maybe?
No, that would be 120 trillion.
120 quadrillion is 120 thousand trillion,
or 120 thousand thousand billion,
or 120 thousand thousand thousand million.
How will it be possible for there to be 134 trillion people when UN global warming forecasts show it’s going to be eleventymillion degrees outside?