A world with no people

Gordon

So I was there waiting for a bus yesterday. I was watching the cars move and the curtains blow in the wind in the flats and the traffic lights blip red, green and protestant. I wondered what the world would be like if there was suddenly no people in it.

So the cars would crash to a halt, the car alarms would whistle, the generators would collapse, electricity would stop, car whistles would finally wear the batteries out and stop, fires would probably scorch the earth - who knows maybe a meltdown would happen. There would be quite a commotion.

But anyway - the point of the thread. If there were no people do you think that certain animals would evolve with greater ease and become another dominant force on the planet out to reap all of the worlds resources, or do you think that the world would be so peaceful, so quiet and so serene that it would just be a "dandy" place to live in?

Apologies to the mods if this is in the wrong forum, I'm still a little hungover. (err actually quite a bit hungover)

zenith

Douglas Copeland's Girlfriend in a Coma and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend both deal with this theme, though Matheson's is a vampire rather than a strictly 'end of the world' book.

IMHO, the tides would flow, the winds would blow, and the balance would be restored to Earth soon enough.

Until another vicious, greedy, grasping, savage species came along and decided to rape it. Probably without the benefit of carbon fuels this time, though.

<edit> corrected mispelling </edit>

hedgetrimmer

Controlled Amrageddon. that's what we need. Reduce the world population to about 15,000 people with a vision to restoring the damage humanity has done to the planet.

Snaga

And I suppose youll "volunteer" to be one of those 15000?

It sure would be peacefull after a while, but as we wont be around it wont matter if its a dandy place to live.

hedgetrimmer

random lottery...only way to go

Borzoi

I have this funny feeling that 15,000 spread over the planet is not a viable population base.

If we did go back to that number, woiuld you propose eliminating technology, and if so, to what level?

Snaga

To drive this in a completely different direction, I reckon the only way is up.

Planet wide genocide will never be an option, nor will sterilising people and allowing the population to die off that way. Civil war on a massive scale around the world would result.

We need to get mars terraformed and people up there as soon as possible

Dont laugh, its far more likely to happen than a willing reduction of the human population to 15,000 people.

Manach

As per original topic, I read somewhere that the species most likely to inherit the Earth should people go poof, would be from the squirrel family, having a modicum of intelligence and the ability to grasp with their forelimbs.

An opposing view put forward by palaeontologist Stephen J. Gould, is that intelligence is an evolutionary random occurrence and the chances another species attaining a technological civilisation is very unlikely.

As for terraforming Mars, this might be the easy part - the fleet required to carry the people would be the difficulty.

azezil

A world with no people = heaven

If earths population took a sudden downturn our societ would revert to an earlier stage of development, skills and knowledge lost would result in lack of many of the machines and services we so love. Diseases have evolved to a point that we can no longer fight them without scientific intervention, in time we'd all be gone.

If we did however make a comeback, could our world realistically servive another industrial period...

DapperGent

I know I'm in a minority here but I don't think humanity is all that bad a thing. The upward surge in our technological abilities is increasing if nothing else, every ten years we seem to have made giant leaps forward. The birth rate in developed countries is slowing the richer they become with technology and imigration making up the shortfall.

We need less and less land to produce food, this will reduce again as GM crops become acceptable and more advanced (as they almost certainly will), this will allow the countries where food is still a problem to eventually (eventually ++) become self sufficient despite their low carrying capacity.

I think that if humanity was sharing (or had shared) it's wealth and abilities around a bit more, we would be far more positive about ourselves. The privations being suffered in an lot of the globe are most awful in that they are unneccesary.

I reckon in a while we might have an Earth with half the number of people and with vast tracts left as wilderness. We're going to muddy the place up a good bit between now and then but I think we'll be able to fix it. I know it's optimistic but I can afford to be since neither I nor any of you will be alive to see me wrong.

As for a world without people. I dunno, another meteor strike could put evolution back a few million years. For the first time in the history of Earth there are beings inhabiting it that can stop this happening. Think of the amount of progress lost to the vagaries of fate if that should happen and on a long enough time line (as the fella sez) it will happen. We may not be too pretty but I prefer us to single celled organisms.

Snowball

I genuinely don't mean to be offensive or insulting to you but you post has grated me a bit...

Originally posted by DapperGent
The birth rate in developed countries is slowing the richer they become with technology and imigration making up the shortfall.

Emmm, no. Well yes in a sense. Yes the birth rate of the more technologically advanced areas in the planet do not have as high population growth as the lesser-developed areas but since Ireland had one of the highest birth rates in Europe. The annual rate of increase during the 1980s was only about 0.5 per cent; in 2001 the rate of population growth was 1.12 per cent. Around 58 per cent of the population lived in urban areas in 1999.
As of 2001 (I think, the year is around that, the stats are right though) the annual birth rate (per 1000 people) is 13.8 and the annual death rate (again per 1000 ppl) is 8.5. work it out man.
In the lesser-developed countries it is worse (e.g.: Tunisia, birth rate was 19.5 and the death rate was 5).

It is sad to think what this race has done to this world but we have ****ed it up big time.
We alter the landscape with out a though and all our damage is made ok with a few simple words like "progress" and "We are people, I mean, it's only animals” and “it's only nature".
Look at the American ffs, they have dammed river systems and moved entire rivers and moved them hundreds of miles from their original path altering the orriginal landscape forever and not a though to what that would do to that landscape or even the rest of the word.
Take Irish countryside for example. You need planning permission to do practically anything with your land (but the restrictions are nearly always in place to prevent annoyance to us as humans and no thought to what our effect our actions have on the landscape or eventually us).
For example (and for people who do not spend a lot of time in the country this will not make much sense, but take notice next time and think about this one) the dividing hedges between fields. As we know fields are not naturally occurring phenomenon (well for the most part anyways) and normally their would be trees and bushes in the way, soaking up water and preventing the gathering of water. Now since there are fields everywhere in Ireland water is able to flow freely and collect in valleys and towns flooding is rampaging this and other countries. But to get back to my earlier point about dividing hedges, farmers who take these dividers out do so for their connivance and them complain when their house is flooded. Look an Clonmel (as an example), the more fields and more dividers that are taken out around the river bed that surrounds the river that passes through Clonmel (the name escapes me at the mo) there are farms and big ones surrounding it.

We keep growing in population and taking up more space as we go and ****ing that space as we go.

Originally posted by DapperGent
We need less and less land to produce food, this will reduce again as GM crops become acceptable and more advanced (as they almost certainly will), this will allow the countries where food is still a problem to eventually (eventually ++) become self sufficient despite their low carrying capacity.

GM crops are being engineered so that they will not sow. That means that the small farmers end up depending on the big giant corps who control the GM crops (they also have them patented but don’t get me started on that). What happens when a farmer’s crop fails? do u think that they will just give him the sufficient seeds for free? all it does is screw up would dept and world poverty even more. ****ING GLOBLISATION!!!

Originally posted by DapperGent
I think that if humanity was sharing (or had shared) its wealth and abilities around a bit more, we would be far more positive about ourselves. The privations being suffered in an lot of the globe are most awful in that they are unnecessary.

I totally agree, could not agree more with that.

Originally posted by DapperGent
I reckon in a while we might have an Earth with half the number of people and with vast tracts left as wilderness. We're going to muddy the place up a good bit between now and then but I think we'll be able to fix it. I know it's optimistic but I can afford to be since neither I nor any of you will be alive to see me wrong.

lol, that’s if we survive that long m8. With the disease that keeps rampaging and the viruses... all we do is make them stronger. No one seems to understand the concept of "survival of the fittest".
Take the flue for example, every year people who do not need to take the flue vaccine and eventually the flue virus gets stronger (that’s nature) and we kill it off again. But not all of it and what survives gets stronger and so on and so on. Eventually the flue will wipe all of us out (sounds far fetched but its a common theory).
Also if you look at any other illness that humans have. We all get sick and we get anti-viral, ant-biotic and so on; we take most (or only some, just until we fell better) but not all and we kill of most (but not all) of what was unsettling our bodies. What do you think happens to whatever is left over. it gets stronger, it may not attack you but will attack someone else.
In the old days we used to get immune to certain things by catching them, over coming them and building up immunity to it. Do u think that viruses and bacteria cannot do that to??


Thanx for those that actually read this rant and if some of it makes no sense just look at when I posted it.

Again, no offence was intended to anyone by this post.




P.S: coming back soon with more rants to a computer near you

DapperGent

Originally posted by Snowball
Emmm, no. Well yes in a sense. Yes the birth rate of the more technologically advanced areas in the planet do not have as high population growth as the lesser-developed areas but since Ireland had one of the highest birth rates in Europe.

I was talking about rich developed countries in general not Ireland. In fairness Ireland has only recently enough joined the developed world. Population growth is to be expected.

Originally posted by Snowball
Now since there are fields everywhere in Ireland water is able to flow freely and collect in valleys and towns flooding is rampaging this and other countries.

In fairness the flooding we had wasn't too bad, if the idiots had bothered unclogging the drains it wouldn't have been half as bad. Also the recent flooding had very little to do with farming, housing development etc it had to do with shít loads of rain on already saturated land. The rain might be linked to global warming but thats far from certain just yet.

Originally posted by Snowball
GM crops are being engineered so that they will not sow. That means that the small farmers end up depending on the big giant corps who control the GM crops (they also have them patented but don’t get me started on that).

Thats as may be but set against the possible future benefits of GM food it doesn't matter a ****.

Originally posted by Snowball
ol, that’s if we survive that long m8. With the disease that keeps rampaging and the viruses...

I think it's more likely than humanity will survive super-disease than be decimated by it. I also reckon we can adapt quicker than they can mutate. It's a problem I grant you but hardly a danger to our species as a whole.

I dunno I just see humanity on a constant upward trend of civilisation and ability since the dark ages. Think about where we'd be if Rome and Greece hadn't fallen. I don't think humans want to pollute the Earth and make species extinct we're just too lazy to do things the hard way eventually our smartness will mean that we can be lazy and not break the Earth while doing it. At least thats the way I see it.

PiE

The important part of that^ was the word:

Originally posted by DapperGent
eventually

Eventually we'll be smart enough not to destroy everything.
Eventually we'll be smart enough to be able to feed the whole world.
Eventually we'll be smart enough to beat any disease.
Eventually we'll have anti-aging drugs.

But all of those things can only do one thing; make humans live longer. And with the population rising all the time, the last thing the Earth needs is us hanging round longer than we're expected to.

Face it, the Earth is screwed as long as we're here :]

DapperGent

Originally posted by PiE
The important part of that^ was the word: Eventually

Yes it was.

Originally posted by PiE
But all of those things can only do one thing; make humans live longer. And with the population rising all the time, the last thing the Earth needs is us hanging round longer than we're expected to.

Face it, the Earth is screwed as long as we're here :]

Yes we will eventually get into a hyper-Malthusian situation. I reckon it'll be just around that time that we'll start colonising other planets, living on asteroids and only allowing people to have one child.

I'm not denying that we've ****ed up Earth or that we're going to **** it up even more I just don't see it as a continuous downward spiral thats all.

Snowball

Originally posted by DapperGent
I was talking about rich developed countries in general not Ireland. In fairness Ireland has only recently enough joined the developed world. Population growth is to be expected.

Country...........Annual birth rate per 1000ppl.......Annual death rate per 1000ppl
United States...................14.5............................................9.0
Australia..........................13.0............................................7.0
United Kingdom.................12.0...........................................10.5
France............................11.5............................................9.0
as of the year 2001
And that’s just a few, there are more.

Originally posted by DapperGent
In fairness the flooding we had wasn't too bad, if the idiots had bothered unclogging the drains it wouldn't have been half as bad. Also the recent flooding had very little to do with farming, housing development etc it had to do with shít loads of rain on already saturated land. The rain might be linked to global warming but that’s far from certain just yet.

Station.............1980........1990.........1998.........1999.........2000
Kerry.................1,775.5......1,334.8......1,782.3......1,774.0......1786.2
Cork Airport........1,303.8......1,032.7......1,378.4......1,177.1......1147.3
Dublin Airport.........825.1........728.4.........832.4.........714.7........840.2
Kilkenny................898.1........842.1...........977.8.......864.6........936.9
Malin Head..........1,084.3......1,310.8......1,285.2......1,342.0......1175.9
Mullingar.............1,007.6......1,022.1......1,079.9......1,054.4......1008.1
Shannon Airport...1,043.1......1,023.9......1,144.5......1,095.9......1100.3
Source: Meteorological Service
Rain fall has not really increased in the last 20 years and more (as far as I know) its just I am to lazy to and type the rest. Its not really the rainfall as much as the effect it has with the different surroundings.
Now only 4% of our land area is covered by trees and about 70% of that is forestry programs that allow no room for wildlife to live under or around the forests. These forests do nothing really for the environment and are only useful for falling for the forestry industry.
Oh, and I am from Dublin, I just spend time in the country.

Originally posted by DapperGent
Thats as may be but set against the possible future benefits of GM food it doesn't matter a ****.

Name one ... apart that the crop is practically invincible, which will just make the insects and the like adapt to them and make it impossible to have normal crops because we will have super bugs everywhere.
GM crop are property of big business and all they do is help big business get richer while the underdeveloped countries get more and more dependant on them and eventually can't sustain themselves without the big corps.
Normally a farmer sows his crop from some of last years crop. That way it does not cost him anything, me makes less profit but there is no cost. If you have to buy a crop so u can sow and the crop that grows is engineered to be infertile u have to buy more seeds so u can sow the next year. The only person that benefits from that is the company who has the GM crop patent.
What possible future benefits can you see??

Originally posted by DapperGent
I think it's more likely than humanity will survive super-disease than be decimated by it. I also reckon we can adapt quicker than they can mutate. It's a problem I grant you but hardly a danger to our species as a whole.

Oh no, why does the American government pour millions, billions into research and procedures to: Virus containment, antidote research, contingency plans and so on? because it is a mayor problem.
Example, aids. 42 million people in this world have aids. That is about 8% of the entire population of the world have aids. Aids is fatal 100% of the time and it is rampaging uncontrollable and we are no way near a cure.

Originally posted by DapperGent
I dunno I just see humanity on a constant upward trend of civilisation and ability since the dark ages. Think about where we'd be if Rome and Greece hadn't fallen. I don't think humans want to pollute the Earth and make species extinct we're just too lazy to do things the hard way eventually our smartness will mean that we can be lazy and not break the Earth while doing it. At least that’s the way I see it.

Its not about lazy people its about big corporations and what they do and not do. The earth is ****ed up because people wanted to make a profit. If you look at all the mayor disasters and all the things humans have done to the earth it has been because of money.

DapperGent

I don't really want to argue anymore just to say that I personally believe that humanity's ability to create new technology and the fact that I don't think we're inherently bad or evil will eventually lead to us having a utopian like existence (I'm thinking Iain M. Banks' Culture here, if anyone has read it), that may make me hopelessly naive or optimistic but so be it.

Well, won't argue apart from this - I have a chance of winning working as I do for the Weather Man:

Originally posted by Snowball
Station.............1980........1990.........1998.........1999.........2000
Kerry.................1,775.5......1,334.8......1,782.3......1,774.0......1786.2
Cork Airport........1,303.8......1,032.7......1,378.4......1,177.1......1147.3
Dublin Airport.........825.1........728.4.........832.4.........714.7........840.2
Kilkenny................898.1........842.1...........977.8.......864.6........936.9
Malin Head..........1,084.3......1,310.8......1,285.2......1,342.0......1175.9
Mullingar.............1,007.6......1,022.1......1,079.9......1,054.4......1008.1
Shannon Airport...1,043.1......1,023.9......1,144.5......1,095.9......1100.3
Source: Meteorological Service
Rain fall has not really increased in the last 20 years and more (as far as I know) its just I am to lazy to and type the rest. Its not really the rainfall as much as the effect it has with the different surroundings.

In a study done after the recent flooding it appears that the main cause of flooding was extremely heavy rain (a month's worth in 36 hours in some places) falling on land that had already reached it's absorption limit. That is it wasn't the rain itself but a combination of days of continuous rain followed by a ridiculous downpour. Enviroment wasn't the key, weather conditions were.

Rainfall has increased on average in the last few years, this year for example was the wettest on record in a lot of the country including Valentia which has a record stretching back to the 19th century. Whether this is all normal climatic fluxuation or global warning remains to be defintively proved. What does appear to be on the increase is severe weather events such as our downpours and flooding and earlier more catastrophic events in Germany and Eastern Europe. This is still at the level of "seems" and "appears" but with temperature rises a tangible fact it is worrying to say the least.

bombidol

If we disappeared? interesting to think about isnt it, to suddenly just Go and neaver come back. Personally i think the damage we've done is probably enough to mess it all up for any other species thats ready to step up to the plate, Nuclear Reactors wouldnt be long about melting down with out regular looking after, Planes drop out of the sky into fields and forrests starting fires that burn them to dust, Electricty stations rust and overheat causing fires and god knows what else. I reckon we've done so much damage at this stage that weve become the keepers of the rock, we are in the damage control stage at the moment and if we went we'd probably take everything else with us:(

Moriarty

Originally posted by Snowball
Oh no, why does the American government pour millions, billions into research and procedures to: Virus containment, antidote research, contingency plans and so on? because it is a mayor problem.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (more commonly known as "CDC") had a budget of just over $3bn out of total government revenues of $2,136bn (or $2.1 trillion) in 2001. Its not a massive amount when put in perspective. True, more money is put into the likes of USAMRIID, but the budget for that is harder to trace - it may even be classified for all i know.

Originally posted by Snowball
Example, aids. 42 million people in this world have aids. That is about 8% of the entire population of the world have aids. Aids is fatal 100% of the time and it is rampaging uncontrollable and we are no way near a cure.

Your example is just plain wrong. If there are 42million people infected across the world, thats roughly 0.6% of the worlds population, not 8%. Last i heard there was progress on a vaccine for AIDS, but i will believe it when i see it. Either way, it will be defeated sooner or later, along with cancer. Its just going to take time and research money.

Originally posted by Snowball
Its not about lazy people its about big corporations and what they do and not do. The earth is ****ed up because people wanted to make a profit. If you look at all the mayor disasters and all the things humans have done to the earth it has been because of money.

Its as much about lazy people as about big business. Big business didnt throw away billions of plastics bags into the environment every year here in ireland. Big business isnt complaining about having to pay refuse charges on waste disposal in the dublin area.

People arent lobying governments to place hardhitting laws and regulations into place in relation to the environment. Almost everyone is prepared to turn a blind eye to the topic when they are reminded that change will require footing a bill.

Simply put, not a lot of people give much of a thought to their environment. Your average joe soap puts more thought into how he is going to pay the mortgage this month, where to go on holiday or whats on tv rather than how much carbon the factory he is working in is emitting.

Riamfada

Originally posted by Snaga
And I suppose youll "volunteer" to be one of those 15000?

.

If im not in that 15000 and Im gonna die im going to take as many of those 15000 with me in the process. He he he. Serious. I really really would, if im going to be killed anyways

Snowball

ok something went wrong here. 3 posts all of them ****ed up
last one contains the reply.



Sorry mods messed up here

Snowball

ok something went wrong here. 3 posts all of them ****ed up
last one contains the reply.



Sorry mods messed up here

Snowball

Originally posted by Moriarty
Your example is just plain wrong. If there are 42million people infected across the world, thats roughly 0.6% of the worlds population, not 8%. Last i heard there was progress on a vaccine for AIDS, but i will believe it when i see it. Either way, it will be defeated sooner or later, along with cancer. Its just going to take time and research money.

lol, as u can see I suck at math but belive it or not its true (not the 8% thing) there were 42 million ppl infected as of 2002 and more every day. See for your self.

Originally posted by Moriarty
Its as much about lazy people as about big business. Big business didnt throw away billions of plastics bags into the environment every year here in ireland. Big business isnt complaining about having to pay refuse charges on waste disposal in the dublin area.

People arent lobying governments to place hardhitting laws and regulations into place in relation to the environment. Almost everyone is prepared to turn a blind eye to the topic when they are reminded that change will require footing a bill.

Simply put, not a lot of people give much of a thought to their environment. Your average joe soap puts more thought into how he is going to pay the mortgage this month, where to go on holiday or whats on tv rather than how much carbon the factory he is working in is emitting.

You are perfectly true. though I was more talking about the huge and very obvios stuff like dams, nuclear plants, oil desasters and so on. but ur are so true its not even funny.