Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-6078851-20130415204132/@comment-6078851-20130427014518

i'm very aware of the fabricated reasons for 'legitimately' invading places, and the propoganda that backs up the 'rightous, god fearing' warmongers. our entire societies are propoganda incarnate which is why so few recognize it - as much as i hate it i have to admit that propoganda does its job admirably.

when it comes to population i believe that more is worse. while the earth may have the capability, under the venus program, to physically sustain 15 billion, i don't think we have a model to psychologically sustain 7 billion let alone 15. the more people there are the more indifferent and hostile people become towards others. this leads to disillusionment and discontent - which then breeds contempt and hatred, which in turn breeds petty conflicts that can polarize people and then turn into open conflict. as much as i want the venus program i genuinely think it'll never work with so many people. while we are a social species we are also an inately aggressive and territorial species, and these traits are amplified the more people are added to it.

global warming - another issue that is subject to massive ignorance :)

while human emissions can, and have, affected the climate it seems that most people completely ignore the fact that earth's climate has never ever been stable. since this planet first developed a climate it has been in constant flux.

granted that humans can do irrepairable damage to the climate, but after the 'hole in the ozone layer' i think we just escaped causing terminal (for us) damage. however, a long time ago in a land far far away, when humans were little rodent-ish creatures and had no say in the climate, the planets average temperature was higher by 10 degrees celcius. not only this but the earth has, so far, went through about 6 ice ages, and after each one the polar caps melted and the planets temperature, and sea level,  raised dramatically. i say 'so far' because technically were still in the ass-end of the last ice age because we still have ice caps. this is what will cause the next ice age to be severe - we are actually due for an ice age (in terms of the gap between ice ages) but we haven't fully left the last one.

the problem with people's perceptions on this is the short-term view - "i've known blistering summers all my life and these days it's definitely colder." when it comes to planetary climate change it's timeline is roughly analogous to geology.

the short-term view can also be considered the main issue with most of what we've talked about. most issues have to be solved "within my lifetime" or "within my elected term", and when people don't see results immediately they just think "well it's not working so lets just scrap it."

i agree that we need to fix our civilisation at home before we go galavanting around the local cluster, but if the venus project fails (or is never tried) at home, then it could be implemented as the basis of the first colony and should work absolutely peachy. my worry is that if we don't fix our civilisation soon and attempt colonisation then we will be extinct within 500 years, and what worries me most in this scenario is the likelyhood that we'll destroy most (if not all) of the life on this planet.

regardless of how resilient or tenacious life is, it is also frighteningly fragile.