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Robert Kunzig says, "In general, we should try to remember to think of people as individuals, not as members of a faceless population whose swelling number terrifies us."
"In general" seems a needless qualification unless we think that it is ever necessary for us to be terrified of a 'faceless' and growing population.
It is the "us" that reveals the folly of this way of looking at the world. This is the view of the global elitist who feels the urge to control world affairs. A population is only faceless as long as it is distant. If you want to do good in the world, work with the people who are close and familiar to you.
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My professor of World Politics had us read an article that claims everyone could have a house with a front and back yard, and fit them into the State of Texas!
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In general, concentrating people is a good thing for nature insofar as it leaves more room for people-free areas.
Two other factors are much more important, I'd say:
1. They then don't need to drive all the time
2. It's much more efficient to temperature-control an apartment building than an equivalent number of houses.
Every now and then I meet someone who hates cities, and thinks that they're environmental disasters. Then I make them look up their estimated carbon footprint vs. that of a city dweller.
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@Allen Knutsen: The person that believes that cities are environmental disasters are not necessarily wrong. While that person's carbon footprint might be larger, most cities do have significant problems with waste: trash, sewage, runoff, construction debris, noise, etc. NYC's harbor is surely not as clean of toxins as most rivers, lakes, and streams in North America. Thus the perception that "cities are environmental hellholes".
The most important thing to remember, as has been touched on, is that each individual has their own needs and preferences, and that while a majority might prefer city living, it is well to provide for those that don't.
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Cities' problems with pollution tend to be self-limiting. Suburban or country dwellers can just export their pollution; city dwellers have to deal with it.
This is one reason why cities may generate less pollution _per capita_ than rural living.
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Universal Green Paste is People!
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The world can't be overpopulated that easy. It's a great misconception. Problem is city density. If people were more thoughtful when they are starting cities, we'd have organized places instead of centralised cities like today and the planet could fit several billions more without any problem. There is enough food and water for everyone, the problem is distribution. One percent of people is holding 40% of the planet's wealth.
Zeitgeist 3 has a great explanation how world could be organized and how planned cities would work perfectly.
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The myth of "overpopulation" is easily seen through and I'm really sick of hearing about it from smart people who should know better. It's based upon the false ideas of Malthus, and ever since him crackpots like Paul Ehrlich have been predicting "overpopulation". What is the "correct" amount of a populous to have to begin with? No answer.
Please stop feeding into this myth. As long as human beings are free to think and take action to feed and shelter themselves there will be no such crisis. Things such as mass starvation only occur when human production is crippled like in the Soviet Union.
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Overpopulation is most certainly not a myth, but merely a mystery as to at what point the unstoppable force, the Capitalist drive for perpetual, infinite growth runs headlong into the immovable object: the fact that we reside on a single planet with an ultimately finite amount of natural resources.
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Two points that weaken the overpopulation argument are it ignores issues such as inequality and bad infrastructure as the real problems, and it sees people as just consumers and not producers. There are actually many reasons to celebrate 7 billion. This milestone proves how ingenious we are, that we're better at keeping more people alive longer now than ever before, and we have more brains to create and develop more useful technologies and innovations to accommodate a growing population. Yes, there are still problems of starvation and lower standards of living for many on the planet, but neither history nor mathematical logic bears out the conclusion that population pessimists reached of resource scarcity. Where there are these problems, we need to go about creating more for everyone rather than curbing our numbers. In the Victorian times, the world's population was a small fraction of what it is now, yet there was still poverty. What changed and improved our lives in the West was not going down from 1 billion to less, but improving sanitation infrastructure, healthcare, our general standards of living, and taking advantage of scientific breakthroughs. We should see humanity as a solution and not the problem. I came across a spoof recently that parodies the many ridiculous overpopulation fears/paranoia - it is hilarious and brilliant! http://www.worldbytes.org/get-off-my-planet-happy-birthday-7-billion/
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Don't bring them to Texas, we got plenty of people already.
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This is another interesting figurehead of Thailand's barge.
http://www.vcharkarn.com/uploads/35/35282.jpg
http://www.shutterphoto.com/spbook/sp12_16/sp_july06_jpg/sp_12.jpg
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Roman Polanski's "Pirates" ship is moored in Genoa's harbour, Italy: http://www.modellismo.net/forum/storia-e-personaggi-navali/71039-galeone-pirata-di-genova.html
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Great post. Check out Opus 40 if you're not aware of it.
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/travel/escapes/02trip.html
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Re:Would you go to Mars... with no return? It's no surprise to me that there would be no shortage of volunteers for a one way ticket to settle Mars. The urge to spread and proliferate is a primary biological mandate, as well as a quintessential factor of Human Nature and especially the American Character.
Settling Mars would be a grueling, toxic endeavor involving enclosed arcologies and Dune-like moisture conservation. Far worse than the daily routine of distilling your own pee for lack of water is the immutable fact that Mars lacks a magnetosphere. It can never be terraformed as we used to hope, because it can never enjoy the protection from cosmic rays and solar bombardment that makes life on Earth possible. If complex life-forms ever existed on Mars, they were surely doomed by the time the tiny planet's core cooled and stopped generating its vital magnetic shield.
But, Life Finds a Way. As soon as Earth evolved a life-form complex enough to spread to Mars and create it's own portable ecosystem there, colonization became a survival imperative.
Living on Mars will always be like living on a space station-- a maddening tincan existence-- but if we survive long enough to do it, there will always be volunteers.
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Thank you Jon, great comment... "a maddening tincan existence?" - sounds like a description of any trip into space.
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@World's Tallest Building Planned for Rome in 1939
It was built 13 years later in Warsaw :-/
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I'm sorry, but that's definitely not a bombe; the wires are obviously modern, and rubber was too valuable in WW2 to be used for rubber bands
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The NIN picture is of their Lighting Dimming system, not anything to do with the sound system ("sound console"). The DMX cable provides the control signal, the dimmers translate that control into power for each light/circuit.
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The second to last image looks like it's from a tram depot. The title is correct, if communication = public transportation :)
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@Bartek is right, the second last photo is the overhead wiring for trains or trams.
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@cthel
It is the rebuilt colossus that was completely quite recently. Hence the modern wiring and rubber bands.
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Love the images. But the second to last photo is incorrect. It's like wiring from trains
PS. I just started a new blog. You mind if you check it out? maybe even comment about it/pass it around if you can? It'd be awesome if you could
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No, it's not Colossus: the rebuilt Colossus is grey. That's the internal view of the rebuilt Bombe in the museum at Bletchley Park, UK.
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@cthel, @anonymous,
That is actually lacing tape, a waxed cotton ribbon used for wiring harnesses. It is still used in modern aviation due to it being less bulky than zipties and it will not chafe the wire insulation. Also rubber definitely would have been allowed to be used since these machines were critical to the war effort.
Lacing tape @ wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_lacing
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I am a lighting designer and the NIN picture has nothing to do with sound! Those are lighting dimmers and 5 pin DMX is a control protocol for theatrical lighting.
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great compilaation, I remember once Prince Phillip the husband of the queen, visiting a factory seeing a messed up wiring and claimimg that the place look like it was built by an Indian. That caused a storm
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That bombe image looks like it's a photo of the rebuild version you can see here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bombe-rebuild.jpg
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This is awesome! I clicked on it because I thought it said "fantastically intense writing," but this is better. I really love this kind of quirky imagery.
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Love this series!
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The picture of Fifth Avenue, 1913...can you imagine how bad the petrol fumes would have been?
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Brilliant article Avi and love those pics! New York is one awesome city!
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The blimp picture collage includes a blimp with the Nazi swastika on it...surely that's not in New York?
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kopapaka / www.palba.cz
quote: "Blogger Francesca said...
The blimp picture collage includes a blimp with the Nazi swastika on it...surely that's not in New York?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg
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About the Blimp with a Nazi Swastika. The Hindenburg was a German airship after all. The Nazis were in power for several years before the war started and regular trade did take place so it's not too surprising to see a Swastika on a blimp.
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The Hotel Edison is still standing and seems to have been spiffed up in recent years. Also, a few of the black & white photos are by Samuel Gottscho. The Museum of the City of New York has many more in its digital collection. I just showcased a bunch of them on my blog - http://bit.ly/eqt5fk
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Thank you Michele, credit adjusted, great info
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The ship in the 5th photo down is the "SS American Star" that was wrecked in the Canary Islands during the 1990s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_America_(1940)
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Where are the feel good boys?
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Nice shirt. Nice model too. :D
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DRB has a feel good shirt model! I feel good. I might just buy a shirt!
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Thank you for the link love in this post. I hope you find more to feature from ephemera this year...
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