Jonathan Frakes is one talented guy

I'm advocating passivity because I don't recognise overpopulation as a threat, more an inconvenience, and one that we couldn't really prevent even if we wanted to.

I don't see what's preposterous or optimistic about taking widely accepted birth rate data and projecting based off that. Birth rates are predictable and stable sampled over a large population. The data consistently shows that as societies come out of poverty, their birth rates fall. The only assumption here is that there isn't another GFC event that hinders growth which at this point is not particularly likely.

All taken into account we already know it's plateauing, and have known for decades. This isn't a hypothesis, it's happening right now. Unless you can show me why this trend will suddenly and irrevocably reverse, despite population data being incredibly stable and predictable historically, it seems the onus is on you to explain why you're so pessimistic.

Again, I think you're still conflating (1) what I want / whether it's bad versus (2) whether it could plausibly be stopped. I would also rather live in a less populated world. At current rates of technology and resource utilisation, things would be cheaper, there'd be more to go around. Reality is not like that. But as I said before, every policy focus has an opportunity cost. I don't see a plateauing population as a threat and I would rather see that effort devoted to poverty which will help reduce it anyway.

We're nowhere near an economic bubble. Maybe a short term stock market valuation bubble right now, but there's plenty of economic under-utilisation in the US and Europe, and China and other developing countries have decades to grow.

The term technological bubble is a bit nonsensical. You can have a technology sector bubble but actual physical technology which works now, will not magically stop working tomorrow based on inflated expectations. If you're saying instead we'll reach some cusp of innovation, well people have predicting that for decades.

We're nowhere near a peak oil event. Every time people say current known reserves are dwindling, they either (1) discover a huge reserve in under developed countries that were previously not surveyed (Africa and parts of SE Asia at the moment), or (2) something like fraking comes along which unlocks new supply. The US is forecast to be the largest oil exporter by 2020 based on that second point.

Hell, I'll play devil's advocate with you. Suppose we do reach a glut. We'll know this at least a decade ahead based on dwindling new reserve discoveries. The price of energy will leap up far, far ahead of us running out. That will spur innovation in more efficient sources of energy and will incentivise both individuals and businesses to be more energy efficient. A gradual adjustment like I've talked about endlessly here. Why am I wrong?

Environmental damage is a different issue and something that I agree needs to actually be addressed. I'm sure if you search back through my posts you'll see me talking about the economic rationale of addressing this directly when corporations who pollute aren't subject to the negative externalities that they impose in our current capitalist system and that will inherently create issues. Hopefully countries will take note of the smog clouds in China's big cities.

@shveddy

I don't buy his overstretched ticking time bomb analogy or the idea of a point of no return. Countless people have predicted peak oil, global resource wars and the like for decades with none of significance eventuating.

Historically this argument would have been even more credible looking around the baby boomer growth of post WWII, because relative population growth was much higher and families were much larger even in developed countries.

Nevertheless, (taking food as an example) agricultural yields multiplied while (taking the US as an example) agricultural employment fell from ~35% in 1900 to <3% today.

Again, pre-GFC, both general food and oil prices were reaching near historic highs. We've since seen moves towards expanding oil/gas supply through fraking and more aggressive and widespread use of GM to enhance yields as well as purely enhancing supply in response to high prices. Both have stayed more or less flat since 08.

The point is, it will be a gradual change, one that society will respond to automatically through price rises, and incentives to create more efficient use of the resources that are available.

Also as far as how to achieve a reduced population as you alluded to, people don't respond to vague global threats that don't immediately impact them currently. Like global warming. Anything other than financial incentives or legal coercion won't have an impact.

A buddy of mine came back from a Con years ago excited because Jonathan Frakes was on a panel and, prompted by fan comments during the questioning, he pledged to create his own 'double tug' version of the Picard maneuver to use in future episodes.

Hmm...apparently he did.

Canada is a democracy right? Therefore the land is owned by the people because Government = People. Also it doesn't matter what specifically will be done to that land if it will destroy the surrounding lands which is what the argument against Fraking is.

Why are all of Frakes' actions centered around his crotch?

Yes but Frakes is 6 foot fucking 4. The whole "Riker Lean" came about because he towers over everyone. Average things are like toys for ants to a man that size!

to be fair..Frakes is a tall dude and those chairs are flippin low.

Not a huge fan of his LNG plan for energy independence....fraking = flammable water supply

I hear what you are saying. (but)
I'm not judging the event. This sounds fraking cool, and I'm sure it's a scientific wonder that we can now detect, analyze and examine events such as these. The science isn't lost on me or the work, study and teams that go into this sort of thing.

What I don't see is great video. I'm not asking for a cheesy edited version dumbed down for the 6-9 p.m. TV viewing public. I am expecting some explanation (as part of the footage), some commentary from the people working on the project, or some graphics explaining the likelihood, descriptions of projections, something.

If there was no description next to this, non of us would even know what we were looking at. Sort of misses the mark from the medium we are here to judge. I'm basing my vote on the video in front of me, not the event that's trying to be presented.


>> ^deathcow:

> that's a white dot on a black surface.
I missed that! I saw an asteroid, maybe 30 ft wide, perhaps showing tumbling motion, being tracked at a ridiculous custom rate of azimuth and altitude change, by a team from MIT working for NASA. Watch the stars fly by in the background.
This near earth object at just thousands of miles away from missing the Earth, is probably like missing a home run in baseball because your bat was 1/50th of a millimeter too low and 0.05 mph too slow.

>> ^bmacs27:

Holy crap, is that Jonathan Frakes? He's aged poorly. He looks like he caught up to Patrick Stewart.

Patrick Stewart has looked exactly the same for the last thirty years. We will all catch up to him eventually.

Holy crap, is that Jonathan Frakes? He's aged poorly. He looks like he caught up to Patrick Stewart.

Exactly. I've also been seeing the same type of thing for Fraking. TheOWS response propaganda is just starting to hit the airwaves.>> ^Sagemind:

Propoganda

Also, if you're interested, natural gas is methane, methane is a greenhouse gas and I highly doubt anyone is counting all of the methane being released by these and all the other hundred of thousands of fraking wells around the world.