"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
In article pDV8c.98339$Cb.1264816@attbi_s51, Jay Honeck wrote:
I doubt things have improved much -- although, if your reproduction
rates
keep dropping, your welfare states will soon evaporate.

There are *far* too many people on this planet - a drop in reproduction
rates is a *good* thing. The oil isn't going to last forever,

Throughout history, such shortages were always a factor in humanit's
existance. Going al the way back to the ancient empires, copper, wood, coal,
whale oil, etc. always had a crisis. (Economics is the study creating plenty
out of scarcity).

and our
highly productive intensive agricultural systems

Highly _what_ intensive?

are absolutely
dependent on oil.

A hundred years ago it was manual labor intensive, using animal power.
Industry was coal fired/steam powered.

Who'd thunk just a few generations later...

Humans need to downsize, or the Earth will downsize
us.

Thomas Malthus said that over 200 years ago (IOW: I'm okay, you're okay,
everyone else is excess) when the earth population was, what, a fifth what
it is today? At the time, maybe 5% of people lived beyond a subsistence
existence. Well, fast forward 200 years and TADA!! more people, more
prosperity, higher living standards, longer life expectancy...

Paul Erlich has been a media darling for over twenty-five years making
predictions that not only didn't come true, but were 180 degrees wrong.

Maybe what we're running out of is creative genius...that wonderfully human
characteristic.

Tom
--
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions".