I have been participating in a debate on "Lysis" blog which can be found at: attheagora.blogspot.com of course it's hosted by this company, too. One of the two reasons that I created this blog.
Anyways. I had to come up with a way to deliver a long rebuttle on why I believe that death is a necessity, and how that belief doesn't make me Hitleresque or diabolical... So here it comes:
A "brief" rebuttle on the necessity of death's role in continued life.
The question that I'd like to address is that of "How can one be both for life, and against it." I suppose the easiest, shortest, answer to give is to say that I am for the continuation of life. That can easily be pulled from the intended meaning to say that I am against people dying, which is far from the truth. Additionally, I am not for the death of individuals. However, I realize the necessity of death in nature and it's functionality other than be that to end one's life.
To fully understand the potential impact that death, or perhaps in this case NOT dying, could have on a population, you first need to understand the concept of "Carrying Capacity". This concept is a mathematical representation of a population's growth, and many things can be cross referenced to find variables that affect a population's growth one way or the other. For instance, the Carrying Capacity itself is to be the subject population's growth under normal circumstances. More correctly, the carrying capacity is how much (in population) of the given populace can survive in this region.
Many factors and such change the ammount of a population. For example: a species of rabbits is introduced onto an island with no indiginous animal life, but it has necessary plan life to sustain the rabbit population. This would be ideal growth, if you were the rabbits, as nothing is likely to impede the growth of the population. There are no predators, and plenty of food, so the growth will likely be at it's highest possible. But a number of things could be introduced to keep the population under control. I.e. predators could be introduced, there could be a famine, a disease or some natural disaster such as a hurricane that could limit, or eventually destroy the population.
One of the concepts of carrying capacity that has been witnessed innumerable times, and I myself witnessed it a number of times last year in my AP Biology class. Is what happens when a species is AT it's carrying capacity. That is to say that its population is at the maximum for the region to support it. There's barely enough food to eat, etc. A phenomenon is observable here if a populace overshoots the regions capability to sustain it. The ENTIRE population perishes. It's particularly common in cultures of Gnats (Fruit Flies), the instance that I observed. That is a terrible problem that needs be considered.
No that the seemingly unimportant explanation has been given, to further answer the direct question of why I think that the fire in 1988 was necessary for Yellowstone, or why old age is important to mankind. Because it's not that difficult for mankind to overshoot its carrying capacity, or Yellowstone. They have the same factors involved. If you were to sit and list the factors that could kill a person, you would have a rather long list. What you wouldn't have is a substantial ammount, though. Comparitively, with the birth rates and the death rates counted. The birth rate of the world at large is significantly higher, with infant mortality significantly lower. That is looking at the world in one lump some, however as everyone should know that some countries are actually shrinking in size when comparing those numbers, and others are growing much faster. By 2050 the world's population is predicted to have reached nearly 10 billion lives. That's at least half again on top of what our population is reported to be today (as reported by http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html). That's assuming all of the current factors that are in place in the world today. Just a projection, but a rather scary one when you think of the over crowding in Japan and others like it. And then take into account that China and India will have the most net growth as they are already the largest nations, in population, in the world.
Now taking into account the recent unvailing of a plan to give people the ability to live for upwards of 1000 years by Dr Aubrey de Grey, in his article from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4003063.stm). That seems to me to be the thing that would easily push us over that edge. Push us over our carrying capacity here on Earth. Of course, many of us would like to live that long. And many of us have so much fear of death that they'd like to never die.
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I stop here. I realize that it is unfinished. And yet, I am worried. I am convincing myself against my argument. I'm not worried to change my opinions, that's all I ever embrace is change. I am worried of the implications and what that means to everything else. I was continuing on to say that there were social implications with a changing morality and ethics structure, but I didn't necessarily see the negative in that.
To finish my rebuttle in as short as possible, we have the potential to kill our entire race by making us live longer, die less. We could solve that by sanctions on birth, etc. But I don't think that our race could stem our greed, our lust, our gluttony. It basically comes down to living longer, or the good of the race. Our genetically engineered crops will only take us so far, and we are short on a readily available supply of Earth-like planets to run to, or to vent our excess population onto.
I suppose my arguments were much weaker than I had originally thought. Or perhaps my mind has just let slip those key points that I had thought up over the last two days. But I find that as we run to science more and more often, we are generating new problems for ourselves. If we wish to sustain our population, then we need to take other measures to keep it low. Policies of life such as peace, healthcare and these therapy sessions to make you live longer aren't a bad thing. I am not against them. I am warning against a type of gluttony that may kill our entire race. We no longer have things that reduce our populations in large numbers as we used to. So now we should control our population as we've never done before.
I suppose it has little at all to do with Vietnam, Yellowstone and the like. I guess I needed to find an outlet for that warning, though. Hopefully you understand it, and beyond that you heed it and learn from it.
