Comment on The history of societal collapses are all just examples of Universe 25

• kemsat@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  “…when mice were given what people supposed would be a mice utopia”

  But it also works as a comparison to our real world, where the ability to expand is restricted.

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  • MangoCats@feddit.it ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “…when mice were given what people supposed would be a mice utopia”

    and I flatly disagree with that statement. That’s not Utopia, that’s rats in a bag: overcrowding.

    But it also works as a comparison to our real world, where the ability to expand is restricted.

    It’s a poor model for our world because it locks the rats in a tiny ecosystem with massive external resources “providing for their every need.” If you backed out and looked at the space required to provide what Universe 25 was using, it’s hundreds to thousands of times the land area of Universe 25 itself.

    You might try to make the argument that humans are “locked in the cities” but that’s barely true for half the population, and the “urban city” I live in still only has 2.1 people per acre of land including roads etc. The home we live in only packs in 3.1 people per acre of privately owned land - that’s 14,000 square feet per person, in an urban metropolitan area that is counted in those statistics that say “over half the world’s population lives in cities.”

    I wholeheartedly agree, human population growth is the biggest problem of this peri-century. I believe that globally we should be targeting a reduction to 2 billion - not overnight, but certainly we shouldn’t be playing the “don’t worry, be happy, everything’s gonna be alright, tax incentives for babymakers!” while we continue to add 80 million people per year globally.

    Regardless of population numbers, this: eowilsonfoundation.org/what-is-the-half-earth-pro… is a good goal, and again, it’s all about space to live.

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