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  • For anyone interested in the teachings of Carolyn Steel, she is visiting Schumacher College, Devon UK this autumn to take a course titled 'Awakening our Relationship with Food' - go to the College website for more details.

    worldwideweb(dot)schumachercol­lege(dot)org(dot)uk(slash)cour­ses(slash)awakening-our-relati­onship-with-food

  • i think it's so sad the amount of people who don't understand this subject. i guess it comes down to things that scare us we choose not to believe. even if you disagree with most of the information presented you must understand the concept that most of us havent a clue of where are food has come from, what has been sprayed on it and how long ago it was picked prior to reaching the grocery store. when is the last time any one of us has purchased a ripe tomato at the store that tasted good.

  • this women is very smart and she has some correct views on food. Today we dont eat as fresh as we would like.Fresh food has been replaced by Mcdonalds, burgerking and kentucky fried chiken. We dont eat as a family. Now we feed our kids ramen noodles like its a major food group. And the amount of Msg = Monosodium Glutimate is rediculus. Msg should be banned just as food additives and food coloring should also be banned due to high blood pressure and diabetes and most cancers today.

  • @glen58316

    to say msg and food coloring should be banned is ignorant. People can educate themselves on those topics, should not be controlled by any one government or group

  • the governments of the world is deceiving us on the dangers of this that why the truth is hard to reveil to everyone.

  • I think we should get rid of supermarkets because they enabled women to go to school and pursue carreers. women should spend more of their time at farmers markets instead of thinking they have a place outside the home. its crazy that women can just get away with buying a weeks full of groccerys at a time.

  • yes

  • i was eating chiken well waching this ..... ivlost im appatie

  • what is this

  • iii

  • Comment removed

  • So informative and very frightening.

  • Kudos Ms. C. Steel brilliant ,, love this topic .. It is as important as any ,, if not all... W/ our so called intelligence in this day and age our thinking re; food(s) is being overtaken by corporate greed, with little respect about basic human compassion... I think we ate better 50 yrs ago VS. today ... joel d. ( Ind. )

  • There is NOTHING that will change ones attitude

    more quickly than having to go without eating.

    Its like Joni Mitchell wrote...

    "We got to get ourselves back to the garden.We just got caught up in some devils bargain."

  • Is she saying 2015 or 2050? Because if she said 2015, I don't think much is going to change in 5 years ... Food wise that is.

  • I think she said 2050.

  • Yeah 2050 So close yet so far away.

  • damn, very informative show.

  • And you are a terrible troll.

  • nice.

  • Lol i thought this was MAD tv.She looks just like how that dude dress's up as a women.

  • Well, that changes everything she says, then! Her words are meaningless because she is not sexually attractive!

  • It's not just monoculture (altho that is a problem). It's also the power of big business (at home and abroad), the well-meaning but misguided public policy of subsidies, the reduction of genetic diversity, the chemicals that make people sick, the dangerous work environment of meat packers, the links to obesity. It goes on and on. I just think we can do better.

  • Like many such people, she states that we should get away from industrial farming.

    Unfortunately, they don't get that without that scale of farming, at least 90% of the world's population must go!

  • @jursamaj; That's not necessarily true. The cheap food coming out of industrial production (and the actions of mega food companies) may actually have the long term effect of causing enormous poverty, and aren't sustainable anyway.

    Besides which, we only started farming like this about 70 years ago. The world population then was about 2.5B (UN estimate). You're saying that the world at the time couldn't have supported more than 0.6B people.

  • Ah, you must distinguish between the results of the food and the results of the food companies' actions. Separate issues.

    And why aren't they sustainable? (Not necessarily the current details, just the industrial scale)

    70 years?  The 1st steam tractors came out about 1850.

    British wheat bushels/acre:

    1720: 19

    ~1750: 21-22

    1840: stabilized at 30

  • But this is all nit-picking the details. The fact is, this idea requires a *drastic* reduction of current population, and authoritarian control of new births.

    Most of the population reduction would likely come from the wars trying to force this stuff on the various countries of the world.

  • This may take a few posts to answer, so bear with me.

    1. I say 70 years b/c that's when we started using left over explosives from WWII as fertilizer (NPK fertilizers), which are devistating when they run off the farms in rainwater. You might could stretch it to 80 years b/c that's when the US government started actively trying to consolodate farming by encouraging farmers to sell their land to agribusiness.

  • 2. The use of fossil fuels *in moderation* is sustainable for many years to come. The trouble is that the West doesn't use fossil fuels in moderation, in agriculture or out of it.

  • "sustainable for many years to come"...

    So, apparently, is the current rate. Just not as many years. How long is long enough?

  • For fossil fuels "long enough" would be time to find something better, but that's not really the point. Putting aside the trouble that appears to be coming our way because of global warming, there's also the problem of the waste produced by our food system. The pesicides and mountains of feces that leech into American rivers and drinking water can only persist for so long before cholera is an issue again. There's E. Coli in our spinach, for crying out loud, and that ain't right.

  • 3. Cheap food and the actions of Monsanto, etc. go hand in hand. Vandana Shiva has explained this better than I can, and it would take more posts here than anyone has patience for anyway, so I encourage you to check out some of her lectures on the interaction between food, agribusiness and poverty.

  • (And just in case you couldn't care less about India, consider how agribusiness is undermining classic agriculture in the US. Monsanto is carrying on a campaign against farmers who don't buy their GM seeds by accusing them of theft and suing them. That hurts the US's ability to prevent famine b/c it reduces the genetic diversity, which means that one super bug can kill all corn in the country.)

  • Again, if it only considers that trio of things (food, agribusiness and poverty), in their current configurations, then it is a very impoverished analysis.

    If Monsanto is making false accusation, that is a wholly separate issue from monocultures. As for diversity itself, what are you going to do, tell some farmers they are required to use seeds with less yield in order to preserve diversity? They'll go out of business.

  • Monsanto's accusations highlight one of the problems of industrial farming: mega food companies have too much power. Farmers have been steadily put out of business since the Depression. That in itself isn't a world-ender. Problem is, food companies are now pushing to stop farmers from using seeds produced on their own land. Those farmers are put out of business by legal fees b/c of Monsanto's lawsuits. I think farmers should have the option of heirloom seeds.

  • But by that logic, *all* the mega corps are too powerful. But they got that wealth and power because the consumer chose it. How do you propose to alter the basics of economics?

  • Mega corps: Actually, I suspect that mega corporations in general actually are too powerful and reduce productive competition in the long run. But that's just my opinion. They got that way because of the passivity or active support of government in the 20th century. I don't think consumers chose it so much as they didn't notice it until it had already happened, or were fallable and couldn't predict the consequences. Many consumers now are actively pushing against it (vote with you fork).

  • 4. The world's population will drop soon anyway. It's already happening in the West. Better medicine drove the population up b/c children were surviving to adulthood. Education and empowerment of women will drive it down b/c who the hell wants to go thru labor 10 times if they don't have to? At least that's been the logic of educated and empowered women the world over so far.

  • It's true that Europe-descended culture has done as you say. It remains to be seen whether the developing countries will follow suit. You assume education and empowerment of women will be universal, yet there are strong forces currently trying to prevent that.

  • Population forecast: I actually checked this out on Gapminder (TED is awesome!), and in the last 15-20 years, children per women has gone down as literacy and early education among girls has gone up, all over the world. Rates in different countries vary, and there are outliers, but the trend is there. Equality in education has been and is going up and children per women is going down.

  • I didn't deny those trends. But a trend doesn't determine an endpoint.

  • Population: By that logic we can't make any predictions and therefore both of our arguments about future populations are invalid. My argument is, given what's happened so far, I predict that the trend will continue. Many countries not in "the West" already are below the birth rate necessary to replace their populations.

  • Indeed, population projection is very dicey.

    I recommend the wiki on "Demographic transition" (also "Demographic-economic paradox"). In particular: "Note that this model predicts ever decreasing fertility rates, whereas recent data shows that after a certain level of development the fertility increases again [3]."

    Stage 3, involving the decrease of birth rates, depends on the events Europe went thru, which aren't guaranteed. Particularly notice the "demographic trap".

  • It appears that stage 3 depends on events that went on (and are still going on) in China, South Korea, Iran, Thailand, Turkey, Brazil, and other non-European states. So, it's not just Europe. As for the possibility of increasing fertility post-stage 3, the impact of that depends on a) how low did the birth rate get, and b) how great of an increase are we talking about? ...

  • If Lebanon's stats go from 1.89 children (2006) to 2.5 (a good, solid replacement rate), then that's still not going to increase the overall population.

    What I see is, the countries that fall into the demographic trap are a minority (they're mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa), and even the DTM suggests that such states will probably fail and fall into either famine or warfare that will through great tragedy bring the population down again.

  • Not lead to an increase of population? How's that?

    If each woman has 2.5 kids, that means each woman produces 1.25 girls, women in the next generation.

    Treat it as discrete generational: Start with 1000 men and 1000 women. Next generations has 1250 of each. Next 1562. Then 1953 (nearly doubled in 3 generations), 2441, 3051 (tripled in 5), etc.

    And as their healthcare gets better, more of those will survive longer.

  • "The replacement fertility rate is roughly 2.1 births per woman for most industrialized countries ... but ranges from 2.5 to 3.3 in developing countries because of higher mortality rates" --Wiki. It's over 2.0 b/c of infant and child mortality, and women who do not or cannot reproduce for other reasons. Maybe 2.5 is high for Lebanon specifically, but my point about an eventual increase in birth rates still stands.

  • Stop balmeing the developing world you fucks.. I am an indian and i eat meat only once or twice in a week! There are many indians who are hard core vegetarians who would are brought up never to touch meat! So blame yourselves.. your greed is what caused this huge mess.. we told you not go so greedy now we have to pay for your miss dead.. think not.

  • @KarthikSoun exactly!

  • you mean you like the speaker?!! hmm.. well i am sure she would like you too..

  • WHY

  • So, how are we going to fix this problem?

  • Easy, just don't have too many children and eat meat no more than 3 days a week.

    Not so complicated really.

  • Ted's mission appears to be..."the world is going to hell in a heand basket, the way we have ordered socierty in up till now has failed, however, we the ellite have arrived and will save the day.

  • haha... thats probably the best thing ive heard all day..

  • .... rather put it like this - "The dedicated researcher (elite) came up with some (unexpected) surprising results...which they would like to share, and consequently, try to make people aware or increase the level of awareness."

  • That's not the case at all. TED is simple a convention where individual people, all over the world, working on independent or global problems of the world, explain to each other what they are doing. The TED prize is awarded to people of fruitful causes.

    These are people that believe they can make a difference, and are working with every ounce of their power to do so. You perceive the world as "going to hell in a handbasket", so that is how you interpret TED's purpose.

  • Look I enjoy TED. But the fact remains, they are technologists and technologists are of the opinion that things - anything - can be fixed or made better.

    Society isn't a play thing or an object, it is people living together - what F.A.Hayek called a Spontaneous Order. Many TED speakers want an Engineered Order because they think they know better than the rest of us.

  • It is not the -experts- talking, if you are decently educated as we all should, you know this already, it has been out for decades.

    You are just afraid of change and reticent to actually take a bit of responsibility for your own existence.

    It is not necessary to remove meat from our diet all of the sudden, but to just have the diet that our bodies have evolved to.

    This is, to eat meat 3 of 7 week days max. or 30% of our daily intake. Healthy for us, healthy for the planet.

  • Drivel.

  • very important subject.... she's NOT the one to bring it. She's missed the truth about agriculture.

  • yay!!! she said mentioned permaculture!!!!

    I still don't understand why they haven't had any permaculture specialists on. I submitted a request on TED the site, but I guess they'd need more requests. any one out there who agrees with me, please go to TED . com and submit a request for Bill Mollison, Sepp Holtzer, Geoff Lawton or any of the many others teaching permaculture around the world.

  • This is nonsense.

  • your face is nonsense.

  • Cloned meat...

  • cloned meat is still inefficient and far beyond our current technological capacity to deploy it safely.

  • As someone who works in the food industry, it is true, people have become very distanced from their food, and waste lots of it. We are privileged to to live in a society where so few, relatively speaking, are required to feed so many. Food gets grown, picked, processed, packaged and shipped thousands of miles. A burger can contain meat from hundreds of animals. there's some food for thought!

  • Paleo baby

  • Awesome@!

  • so, perfectly good arguements supported on real information dont apply because the lady is fat. Great to be at Youtube.

  • What great arguments? She discovered a problem that people don't care about and pointed out solutions someone else came up with that became popular years ago and which she in no way helped implement and still she's acting depressing and self righteous. Give her a gold star for wasting my time.

  • if this was truly a waste of your time, you wouldn't have come back to respond some more =0

  • I was responding to a response. It's simple social interaction. when someone says something you respond this prevents a comment section from being a dull wasteland of trolls and fanboys. Debate arises and even something as meaningless as this piece of fluff might actually atone for itself by leading to an interesting conversation or debate.

  • I agree with you but at the very least, she's speaking where those who have truly contributed to things like permaculture may soon get a stage like this to state their case.

    That was the first time I'd heard permaculture mentioned at a TED talk. I don't care who she is, I'm just glad she's brought it up.

  • You have as much of Anthropologist as I have of NBA player with my 1.60m stature.

    Your mind is not just closed, it is sealed.

  • I belive vertical farming is the future...

  • LOL!!

  • Sungazing would help the billion starving and the billion obese. Youtube Search: Solar Gazing with HRM. Food is a secondary source of sun energy. The eye on the capstone of the One Dollar bill is your clue. The stone that the builders disregarded turns out to be the most important. It's the pineal gland. The third eye. There ARE many people living now without eating food. Sungazers are everywhere.

  • They eat liquid food. They also don't look very healthy.

  • I think you should jump off of the edge of the earth and hit all the turtles on the way down.

  • Annoying hippy.

  • Are you?

  • I am sorry but I can't take anything some1 overweight says about food too seriously.

  • I am sorry but I can't take anything some1 who resorts to ad hominen attacks too seriously.

  • New studies show that overweight is caused mainly by how much food the mothers eat during pregnancy. Eating too little food will cause the baby to be born with bacterias that break down fat much more efficient than normal. This is the main cause why some people can eat almost all the food they want and don't ever get fat, while others have to eat diets to drop weight. You're prejudice is uncalled for.

  • that would be highly intriguing if you could support your claim, maybe a hyperlink or two for us?

  • I'm sorry, don't got any links to hand out right now. The source of my claims, is a highly respectable magazine called "Science Illustrated", if that helps on the truthfulness of my claims. But if you still want links, I'll get back to you later and try dig up something, I just don't got the time right now.

  • that should probably be enough to go on, but i suspect your claims are quite accurate, i once watched a show about a specific nucleic acid that handles personal evolution over the course of your life, for example if you practice punching hard objects often your body will actively change the structure of the bones in your knuckles by adding new layers of calcium deposits, if only i could remember the name of the molecule... its driving my crazy, im sure its the same phenomena at work

  • I was a bit over 210 pounds 8 or so months ago and am now 155 lbs, this is without doing anything special. Saying this to let you know that genes and bs excuses are just that, excuses. Educate yourself and find out why your body isn't behaving like you want it to couse is the end is your fault as opposed to some disadvantage you been putted with.

  • Google: Poor Nutrition in Pregnancy May Mean Obese Kids

    These articles doesn't state exactly what I stated about the bacterias, but I remember those statements from "Science Illustrated" specifically. The article in SI was much longer and went deeper in detail than these articles. And stated other things like that there might be a correlation with poor diet in America 30-50 years ago and today's overweight problems in America.

  • Now I ain't generalizing this, you're situation may very well be totally different. All overweight people does not necessarily have their mother (or grand mother) to blame for their obesity. And one should be careful about putting blame on anyone for something you can't be sure about.

  • one would be a fool to think genes dont play a part, some people would have to work a hundred times as hard as you to achieve the same results because of their physiological makeup, the moral of the story, often it is a bad excuse and sometimes it is a legitimate one

  • Where is the evidence that developing countries will come to embrace a Western diet when they become developed?

    Don't be so West-centric already.

  • This woman is very foolish in her presentation.

    First off she starts off by saying we cant feed the world and that we cant feed the world meats. And that there is no solution likely.

    Industry and technology in food sciences have archived the unheard of only 75 years ago. In the last 50 years food production per acre has skyrocketed. She greatly underestimates the human ability to achieve the impossible. In typical libtard fashion she creates a crisis out of nothing, and wants to control it

  • Rewatch her presentation, she is not saying that we can't feed the world, she is in fact saying that we are doing it badly and inefficiently.

    But, of course, your use of an epithet shows me that you really weren't watching it except through your own blinders and wouldn't get it if you did rewatch it.

  • The process of what happens to food once it leaves our bodies is more interesting than this babbling ole bit'.

  • How is it more social to shop at a centralized market in a small city vs shopping in a supermarket in suburb of a large city? Then she says we don't trust food. Somehow she knows that people in the past really trusted their food. This is based on nothing. She just made it up.

  • She looks like she values food; a little too much.

  • This is good sense. Thank you for uploading this.

  • Wonderful talk.

  • The world has evolved towards specialisation (I think it's a shame she forgot to mention the effects of refrigeration on food transport), in both transport and agriculture. So why is that bad per se? Is it specialisation that causes environmental damage, or something else?

    I also found her way of speaking a bit strange; as if decisions about food distribution were made collectively. Even in Rome, that lover of the politic, food was a decentralised affair.

  • I think much of what she is referring to for food can also be referred to trade routes... although most trade before the trains and boats were only food and maybe tradesman's goods like metals.

    She's right though, food has long been a tool of powerful control. And with 5 major corporations owning most of the food industry that doesn't bode well for the little guy :S

    The decision is considered collective because food is necessity.

  • There are several cities which have successfully incorporated food production into the urban environment. This does away with much of the transportation and energy costs associated with food distribution. Of course, eating less or no meat or dairy has a huge effect too.

  • ......were boned.

  • The Venus Project . com

  • Hi, see post above for my reasons. Maybe it'll open your mind a little bit to another possibility.

  • if you are going to make a speech, at least try to change your voice tone so it doesn't sound like you are bored to death and wanting to be somewhere else.

  • I don't think being vegan for religious reasons is rational...

    I don't think being vegan is a very good thing either, but reducing meat consumption surely is, for the environment, and for health reasons.

  • I'm just not convinced by this. The lack of data here worries me. This is simply "oh wouldn't it be nice if we had happy cows, happy families, and happy community food." Specialization if a part of economic advancement. the Rural/Urban divide is a part of this and without mega farms we wouldn't be able to feed NEARLY as many as we do now.

  • I agree. Food production is more efficient than it has ever been. Streamlined production and distribution methods have done more to feed the hungry than any amount of environmental romanticism ever could.

    There are some valid points though: Meat as a source of energy is very inefficient (and delicious). At the current growth rates we will quickly run of of agricultural land, although this is more a problem of overpopulation than food production.

  • There was another Ted video that argued the opposite. Essentially without modern super farms many more humans would not be alive today. If we switch to something less efficient, instead of 1 billion starving we will have 2 billion. In fact the number of staving people has been falling and its definitively linked to the increase in availability and cheapness of food.

    The point is that she didn't really offer any solutions that had any sound scientific bases. No statistical data or anything.

  • somethings are interesting but i disagree with a lot of things in this video

  • so basically, she is looking at life from only one perspective, right? and then she tries to put all together seen from this one perspective. and it seems to fit, so her perspective is the right one?

    looking at it from this perspective, her talk seems provocative and more like art - rethorical polemicising but only a picture seen in black and white.

    so basically i can not take this talk serious.

  • western diet is just too profitable

    Also, certain things like agriculture simply can't be done effectively at a local scale. Perhaps buying all our food from Walmart to the point where they can automate their business even further, to deliver fresh produce from large agricultural centers straight to our dwellings might be one way to bend capitalism to our benefit.

  • I fear this "eat natural" religious movement is breeding a generation of neo-luddites with very little in the way of logic and scientific skills, and no appreciation for how far we've come thanks to the benefits of our technology.

    I'd rather hear someone talk about exactly WHY Home Grown food tastes better, i'm quite tired of hearing the "it's magic!" explanation of Gaia worshiping retards.

    "Yeah, can you taste the love in this tomato, maaaaan?" urgh

  • "no appreciation for how far we've come thanks to the benefits of our technology."

    The worst are the people decrying genetically-engineered crops as being some sort of mutant vegetation that is the bane of humanity. You know, never mind the BILLION people saved worldwide by GE crops, or the fact that as population increases, so must crop yields.

    Organic foods are great, but for most of the world's population, are not an option. It's elitist and shortsighted to force them onto people.

  • i'm hungry... i need beef or steak.

  • omg a seziure

  • ive recently been discovering the joys of cooking from scratch. its wonderful getting know know food and it feels good to enjoy a meal free, or at least nearly free, of preservatives and food colorings and artificial sweeteners and things of that nature.. just today i made fresh pasta for the first time. i must say it was WONDERFUL! it was fun, delicious and SO much cheaper than premade pasta :). i wish i could have been raised to know more about food instead of learning about it later in life.

  • how do you feed a city?...how bout you tell me what your fat ass eats in a day and im pretty sure i could answer your question. what a pathetic rant of nothing

  • This lady is talking out of her butt. Nothing worth seeing here. She takes no considerations of neither economics nor fundamental nutritional knowledge.

  • Agreed. She's way too vague, no substance.

    She says we should be replace farms with Permaculture. This is rediculous, permaculture requires more land, and more labour than farming does.

    Does she think we should all be farmers? We live in a professionalised society, because professionals do things best and most efficiently!

    Farmers are the best at growing food.

    Architects are best at designing buildings. Maybe she should write books about that instead.

  • Didn't quite enjoy this video.

    It starts out fine; meat is ineffecient, food distrubution sucks and we waste too much.

    But seriously, food as a cornerstone for families? Sigh, I just just eat food for 2 reasons:

    1) Get nutrients.

    2) Supress hunger feeling.

    In the future we'll just eat pills that give us a perfect dose of what we need and it will be awesome.

    Less waste, perfect diet means longer lifespan, no time wasted to cook, less space needed to produce all of it, you name it.

  • Food is the cornerstone for many families, as it should be. No thanks with the nutrient pills. Proper farming methods enrich and nourish the land while creating an abundance of food for people to eat. Remineralized minimally processed organic and biodynamic foods are the key to the future.

  • So what about communities built in places where the soil is only efficient to grow a limited variety of crops?

    Or what if the soil and/or climate is so poor that it would leave a smaller carbon footprint to grow crops far outside the community and ship it in, than it would to grow it in that community?

    You can't build a city like Dubai in the fashion she's describing.

  • You can create sustainable food systems in pretty much any climate. Permaculturists are 'greening' parts of the desert which were once considered completely inadequate for food production.  There are some good videos here on youtube on that regard.

  • Yes, but doing that requires far more energy than growing food somewhere where it is naturally most efficient to grow it and shipping it. It would require so much more energy that it would leave a far greater carbon footprint and be even worse for the environment than shipping the food from place where it naturally grows most efficiently.

  • That is actually not true. You should research permaculture and the work of Geoff Lawton, he has done projects greening the desert. The systems created are self sustaining, only needing the initial human effort to create them and then tend them,it mainly requires human labor. You would grow it to feed the local populations and wouldn't need to ship it.

  • Yeah, I've seen quite a bit of it, and there's no doubt it can help, but even in permacultured farms, you're limited to what can grow in the desert climate, which is mostly fruit. Not much else.

  • I am always for these kind of examples to make the world more sustainable.

    However, I didn't like her choice of words. For an articulate english person I wouldn't expect her to say that food was a tool for city design, but rather an inspiration, guideline or requirement...

  • Really interesting idea.

  • one man's food is another man's poison

  • I like the start of her presentation but the solutions were very vague, it just said treat food better. I think some of the solutions to focus on are:

    1) eat more locally so you waste less energy on transportation.

    2) Eat less meat because meat cost more land and water than any other food group (not sure how you accomplish this) Rationing might be the only way but god knows Americans will never go for that... perhaps better food education??

    3) Eat communally instead of individually

  • There are ways to drastically reduce the amount of space livestock needs, in fact I believe it was discussed on a previous TED.

  • local meat can result in some great benefits - reduction of harmful insects, less pollutive gounds care, increased green space, etc. as well, free range animal fats can contain important nutrients which are absorbed more readily then when found in other areas.

  • if a pack of smokes cost's $6 and the cost stop's

    1 million people from smoking. Health care cost should go down in the future.

    Every channel on TV push's the .99 cent fast food crap.

    If you want to save future health care cost's then it should be a $10 burger?

  • Should be. But too many people are addicted to fast food crap (myself included) for something like the laws against Tobacco to be passed on fast food, anytime soon.

  • You're not addicted, you're just too lazy to figure out how to cook.

  • You're right, saying it's an addiction is just passing the buck.

    It's not that I'm too lazy to figure out how to cook, I'm just too lazy to actually go out and get what's needed to cook, and then to cook it.

  • You just have to get into the habit is all.

  • I'm always astounded by some people's utter affection for forests, as if they're the only good ecosystem. are hot deserts inherently bad? no. they're naturally occurring, just like grassland, wetlands, jungles, tundra, etc.

  • forests look pretty and are more habitable to us than deserts are. However, i'd say it's *all* beautiful in the long run, so my previous point is pretty well moot.

  • They generally have the most natural resources. Resources which when used destroy the forest itself. Cut down forests and you have less wood, no habitat for the animals that lived there, less oxygen that those trees produced, etc.

    If you take oil from the middle of the desert you're only misplacing sand.

  • desert ecosystems are more fragile than you think... anyways, my point is that the idea that the earth should be covered in forests is domineering and unthinking. yeah, I love forests, I live in a temperate zone, but still, we have to understand the importance and beauty of all zones.

  • Population control seems like a good solution. Nothing wrong with allowing 2 children per parent, on a national basis. I don't see how that "restriction of freedom" is problematic.

    For the sake of animals, i hope we develop invitro-meat and artificial diary substitutes very soon.

  • For some it's against their religion. For others having the government decide how many children they are allowed would be the ultimate restriction of freedom.

    The primary argument for pro-choicers is that it's a woman's choice to have or not have a child. How is a forced abortion different than a forced birth?

    It might fly in some countries that are extremely forward thinking but I doubt it would ever fly in the US or many other countries.

  • Control is never the solution.

    I want to live free

  • I don't think there are any solutions in nature. There is only one important law in nature, called cause and effect. Humans look for solutions and the only way solutions come is by changing the direction of the cause and getting the effect in your favor. However, changing the direction of cause might seem infringement on freedom to many human beings. However, humans should realize that nature doesn't really allow them any freedom. It makes us dependent on external things starting with food.

  • @roidroid:

    Control is "necessary evil" if you will. In a global sense, you're sitting in my room already and if we don't cooperate by agreeing on self-control, this room is gonna get very uncomfortable for everyone. Our evolutionary drives alone, aren't suited to solve this.

    I don't believe in Anarchy, as much as i'm a freedom seeker.

  • You don't believe in humans interacting freely, yet you seek "freedom." That's some kind of perverted freedom you're seeking.

    It's a fallacy that everyone occupying a huge chunk of land, or even worse, the world, has to agree on everything. And the failure of the US government that is directly proportional to its size should be a clear indicator of that fact. If communities were allowed to establish their own laws and interact freely, people would be much more self-sufficient and productive.

  • What i'm saying is that EVERYONE in our society wants to live free. No-one will vote for your idea.

    I fear your ideals are the ideals of an authoritarian, a despot.

    "We will control the people".

    You will have a fight on your hands.

    Messing with procreation is a particularly messy business, it makes people freak out.

    Google "Penis Panic".

  • It sounds a lot like jac Fresco's 'venus project'.