Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
...wars, plagues, and famines will "cure" those numbers!
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Have a read of Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature". He argues, with plenty of data to back it up, that what we are living in is by far the most peaceful time in human history.
Wars used to be waged against entire societies. Tribal societies, presented with the opportunity, would occasionally kill every adult and boy in the enemy village, and take the girls for wives. In the bible, there are accounts of all manner of repugnant war crimes, including genocide. Just 60 years ago, the US was carpet-bombing enemy cities. Nowadays, we're upset if a dozen civilians die as collateral damage.
Then there's religion. If you truly believe that a person's soul can be saved if he accepts Jesus before he dies, then you'll do *whatever it takes* to get him to do so. In the Dark Ages, they were torturing people to death in that pursuit, ending lives but saving souls. It's the morally right thing to do. The things that medieval christians did make modern mujihadeen look quite tame.
A quote from the dust jacket: "Thanks to the spread of government, literacy, trade, and cosmopolitanism, we increasingly control our impulses, empathize with others, bargain rather than plunder, debunk toxic ideologies, and deploy our powers of reason to reduce the temptations of violence".
As poverty recedes and universal literacy (and erudition) spreads, we'll see birth rates decline, and new technologies evolve to replace our dwindling supplies of liquid fossil fuels. This process may be an inevitable one, but that doesn't mean you can sit on your haunches and wait for it to happen. Even inevitable processes happen because of the actions of skilled and motivated innovators.
The transition from fossil fuels can be an orderly one if we start sooner, but in any case I have no doubt that civilization will survive.
Oh, and F=1/2*CdA*rho*Vē.