Clouds and VPSes [LWN.net]

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 25, 2022 17:36 UTC (Mon) by johannbg (guest, #65743)
In reply to: Clouds and VPSes by kleptog
Parent article: Fedora considers deprecating legacy BIOS

> Perfect is the enemy of good. If we only accept perfect solutions we'll never get anywhere.

It's not like we are getting anywhere without the solutions being perfect now is it.

And it's not like the real/perfect solutions aren't known as in changing the world's economy and reduce the human population, they just cant be realistically implemented, well technically they can the former will never be allowed to happen and the latter never be socially accepted.

> I don't disagree with your sentiment that we're already basically screwed,

Biodiversity, polution in earth, water and air yup we are pretty fucked.

> but I don't think that's an excuse to just give up completely.

True we can always hope that good size meteor hits the planet.

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Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 25, 2022 18:22 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

Well, iirc the prediction (in 1980) for the millenium world population was 12Bn, and if we were unbelievably lucky it might be only 8Bn. What's the current figure?

To the best of my knowledge, we've undershot pretty much every prediction since, and the forecast for 2100 or 2150 is only 3Bn ...

Populations naturally boom and bust, and it looks like we might be hitting bust, luckily for Earth ...

Cheers,
Wol

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 25, 2022 19:08 UTC (Mon) by johannbg (guest, #65743) [Link] (1 responses)

Well it's not like the human population will stop breeding tomorrow despite the genderless generation's attempt to put a dent in the population growth rate and the fact is we kinda need a meteor like right now, not 50+ years from now.

And who does not want to go out in a blaze of glory of kinetic energy = mass/2 * velocity^2

It sure beats dying of old age doesn't it...

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 25, 2022 22:13 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Well, for a start a repeat of Tunguska over Stal (sorry, Put)'s palace might be a good idea ... let's hope the universe obliges ...

Cheers,
Wol

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 26, 2022 12:50 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

This is not a population bust in the biological boom/bust sense. These are caused by starvation or predator pressure. What we are seeing almost worldwide is the voluntary reduction of breeding rates in order to focus more resources on fewer offspring. This is largely because this is what women want, but also because there is an economic incentive: in poverty-stricken rural areas children become a source of free labour fairly fast as they grow up, so you can use one round of children to help fund the next, and having *lots* is to a certain degree beneficial to all of them. In cities they are and remain a substantial cost to the whole family, including any older children. So it's beneficial to have fewer.

(There is probably also something related to falling death rates: if you know that most of your children will survive, you'll have fewer. But the economic incentive is substantial even in the absence of that.)

Clouds and VPSes

Posted Apr 27, 2022 1:33 UTC (Wed) by JanC_ (subscriber, #34940) [Link]

There is also the concept of children taking care of the elderly in poor areas, which is less needed in places where we have pensions.