We need HOW many threads about this? Fuck.

>>3959639
I don't see any others.

>>3959639
>>3959640
Not OP, but the previous thread got full and is dropping off the face of the internets.

Since people still have things to say about this, a new thread is in order.

any other sources on this? they mention a "leak"...

>>3959640
Dear fucking god it's one page over
>>3958599

>implying nasa has been relavent in the last two decades
>implying it shouldnt have been cut way earlier
>implying it hasnt been kept around for the sole purpose of bragging rites
>implying 90% of government patents dont come out of darpa these days
>implying nasa has been anything other than a useless money sink after the moon landing

>>3959645
It's over 300 posts, it's autosaging now.

>>3959637

This is all the fault of SLS. We cannot afford it, we do not need it, yet they are trying to squeeze it into tight budget.

The reason is because it is a jobs program for contractors and employs people in NASA states, so lobbyists and politicians are all over it.

They dont care about space, but about this flow of money going on.

Cheaper and faster alternative (propellant depots) is being intentionaly neglected.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1955/1

(dont be put off by TEA party references, they are right in this one).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wezdbLqRnzs


AMURIKA

I seriously hope privatized space exploration starts to take off, no pun intended.

I wish all the money that funded the space shuttle program and the ISS had been put towards science instead.

>>3959646
>implying nasa has been irrelevant in the last two decades
>implying it should have been cut earlier
>implying it has been kept around for the sole purpose of bragging rights
>implying 90% of government patents coming out of DARPA these days is relevant
>implying NASA has been a useless money sink after the moon landing
It's nice to see the detractors using so much erroneous information. Not to mention all the typos and bad grammar I had to fix.

>>3959646

You are right about manned spaceflight part, but unmanned exploration was quite successful.

>>3959662
i think someone doesnt understand greentext doublespeak

Am I correct to fear the scientific/technological stagnation of the United States?

>>3959671
nasa was already technologically stagnant. id worry when other stem programs start getting the axe

>>3959671
Absolutely.

>>3959674
In the sense that it wasn't contributing much to technological advancement? The article says the hubble telescope lead do so much discoveries in physics though. Wouldn't it be a bet that if that hasn't lead to technological advancement, it's going to at some point down the road?

The leftists can't govern a society of welfare drones if the average person enjoys the uplifting benefits of space exploration & associated technologies.

my school's flight dynamics control lab probably wont be around due to california's budget cuts and the fact that it's tied to jpl, they did very interesting research on MARS entry guidance, but i guess that wouldnt lead to technological development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTyktUuC4g

This makes it all the more annoying that NASA would get cut

>>3959682
It would be possible if we weren't spending it on stupid shit like bailing out corporations and fighting 3 middle eastern conflicts.

>>3959684
pic related, notice how it says sponsored by jpl, but i guess not for long

>>3959687
>The longer I'm alive the more I'm convinced that we need a Technocratic Party.
>YNot1989 2 months ago 17 thumbs up

so how many LFTRs could you make with that 17 billion?

>>3959701
Make that 18.

>>3959723
Kirk Sorensen estimates around 2 billion would be fine for research and development for LFTRs. After that's done such reactors could be pumped out in factory and made at 10-20 million a pop.

Let's not forget about the USAF Space Command, folks.

>It will be a dark day indeed.

Why? We can't afford it, but other countries can. What is to stop all of NASA's engineers from moving to China and continuing their projects for the PRC?

>>3959741
>Why? We can't afford it
No it's not that you don't have enough money, it's that the distribution of money that you're spending, is somehow warped. in someway, that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.

>>3959741
>the richest country in the world
>citizens always like to point out the fact to foreigners
>"We can't afford it"
Sounds good and logical.

>>3959747
The public doesn't want to dream about space exploration. They want Jersey Shore. Anyway, why can't all these engineers just emigrate? Someone has to want to finance this. PRC certainly has the cash and military need.

>>3959741
We can easily afford it if we cut the budget from all the rethuglican fat cat initiatives. NASA has always been about the public, and it is a fucking disgusting shame that it will be discontinued just so we can "bail out" a few more banks.

Frankly, I'm glad I got the job I wanted out of country because the U.S. is going downhill fast. There is next to no emphasis on research/development/exploration for the coming generation and it's going to bite us in the ass really fucking hard in about 10-15 years when we don't have people educated(or interested in being educated) past high school.

Mark my words, the U.S. is the new Britain, they are on their way out from the top and are unlikely to return there.

>>3959759
>Mark my words
You make it sound like this is some new idea, and that people haven't been credibly claiming this for years.

What will happen to Hubble?

>>3959756
So you want a completely retarded and scientifically illiterate countries to be one of the few that has nuclear weapons. Good plan.

>>3959763
Sell the program to China.

>>3959764
>China
>retarded
>scientifically illiterate

>>3959764
China already has a ton of nukes and is already a superpower. Wtf are you talking about? You'd rather years of research die because of some nationalistic nonsense?

>>3959762
I have been saying this since the late 80's with the advent of horrific financial policies. Not that I like that fact either, I'd rather have been horribly wrong.

>>3959756
The public WANTS space exploration. They DON'T like it when the promises of rotating 10,000-strong habitats in space blow up and the future looks like politicians bickering and space always seeming far off and impossible to reach. The Library of Alexandria was burnt to the ground by commonfolk because it wasn't related to them at all and they saw no benefit for themselves. And when you have people living on less and less every year, when they hear stuff like NASA SPENT BILLION DOLLARS ON THIS PROGRAM they get in a hissy fit. You need to be a country that's going somewhere. You NEED to give people both in America and other countries to work and learn in America. Imagine if Nixon hadn't cut NASA Future Reference Missions and gave piss-all budget to NASA to build an inefficient shuttle with. We'd already have people born on Mars (first base was to be established 1988) and you wouldn't have this dumbass problem of everyone uninterested in science.

You want prosperity? Have ambitious goals. IMPROVE. Do what you can with what a shitty situation you've fallen into.

>>3959740
Are they going to pick up funding for the James Webb space telescope?

>>3959773
>The public WANTS space exploration.
Citation needed.

>>3959775
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO6R4Lv6wRw&NR=1

>>3959769
I'd rather some of the air conditioning budget go to NASA instead. They literally spent 30%+ more there on JUST FUCKING AIR CONDITIONING then the entire NASA budget for the same year.

That tells me something is horribly wrong.

P.S. - China has already surpassed the U.S. in space research years ago.

>60% of budget on military
>0.5% on NASA
>cut NASA funding

>America

>Gov wants student investment in STEM.
>Goes and cuts funding for one of the most prominent groups of it.

Way to provide a message, hope this works out for you when your youngest generation can't compete with foreign interests.

>>3959779
>1969
That was a long time ago. In 2011 the public is much more concerned with 10%+ unemployment and the budget deficit and therefore much less willing to spend billions of dollars on telescopes;

>>3959781

>bailout given to banks more money than all of NASA's budget for the last 50 years combined

>>3959783
>2011
>talking about foreign interests
>not being a global citizen

Just learn a few languages and travel to where the jobs are bro.

>>3959784
The public would be a lot more interested in space exploration if it wasn't limited to a few budget probes being launched every year because of severed grant restrictions. You are confusing correlation with causation.

>>3959789
>opinion poll data needed

>>3959784
Increasing funding for NASA and science funding, bringing troops home, cutting military budget to 400 billion, building LFTRs to power America and supply all of its petroleum needs as well as stating all cars sold in America to run on flex fuels by 2016 would solve so, so many of your issues.
Simply from the amount of money you'd save on importing oil (Around 800 billion - 1.1 trillion)

NASA doesn't need to be on the chopping block. It shouldn't be on the chopping block. There's two ways to improve the world: You can decrease the suck, and you can increase the awesome. And you don't want all your money spent on decreasing suck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFvMPWSBQxw

>>3959785
>Politicians
There are no Republicans or Democrats anymore, it's just a fucking shitshow of morons to incompetent to form an actual policy on anything useful.

>>3959795
Agreed. But,
>implying I can listen to that pretentious aspie faggot talk for more than 10 seconds.

>>3959752
USA isn't the richest country in the world.
There are numerous more rich and developed countries with better quality of life.

>>3959800
Maybe richer per capita, but they are tiny, irrelevant shit countries in Europe.

>>3959793
>Most watched shows on History, Discovery. BBC, etc channels are all space/science shows.
Doesn't take a fucking rocket engineer to see what people want when they aren't being spoon fed garbage on the airplane of fale.

>>3959800
>over 14 trillion a year GDP
>not the richest
Riiiiiight.

>>3959801
I will take a guess, and claim that life for ordinary Swiss citizens is far more comfortable and safer than life for USian.

>>3959803
Okay, the people that watch those channels care about space exploration. People that watch those channels are not a representative sample of the American public. The mouthbreathers that watch MTV and basic cable vastly outnumber the people that watch the channels you listed.

>>3959804
Nominal GDP of Norway is double that of the US.

>>3959801
China and Canada are both set to overtake the U.S. in the next decade as leaders in world wealth production. We may be the richest at the current moment, but it won't last much longer if the current economic climate holds.

>>3959805
Yes, per capita, richer. But not richest overall. Tiny, irrelevant Switzerland does not have the budget for a program of NASA's size.

>>3959809
And Norway is way smaller with far less rocket scientists and less government income due to small population. Stop dancing around the issue. The United States is perfectly able to establish dozens of bases on Mars if it wished by 2020.

>>3959804
I am sure slave-prisoners in USA value that fact very much.
As do thousands murdered every year by firearms in USA.
Let's face it. USA isn't a country most people would like to immigrate into. The immigration is fueled by people from Third World countries mostly.
For any citizen in developed world USA is horrific place to live in. No health care, crime rates like in Third World, slave-prisons farms, death penalty, terrible citizen rights abuses.

I am not surprised with this happening. It only demonstrates how USA crumbles....

>>3959809
I think you mean nominal GDP per capita.

>>3959817
[citation needed]

>>3959817

>US brings all 900 Foreign base's home and puts them on Mars

>>3959808
MTV and similar stations have had ratings drop off like a rock in the last few years. Their influence on the unwashed moronic masses is slowly being eroded. Even prime-time shows like Fringe and BBT have some aspects of science in them that make them far more popular then mind melting shows.

>>3959809

Huh.

Clearly wrong. Nominal GDP of US is probably several times larger than the GDP of Norway.

haha US would rather cut science than military. Looks like you guys have a short future ahead

>>3959822
Where is your space program then faggot? Show us how many fags you put on the moon.

>>3959826
>implying a shit ton of R&D doesn't happen in military

>2011
>caring about nationality

So how do we go about making sure China picks up where the US left off? Should us /sci/ folk start learning Mandarin?

>>3959827
The moon landing was faked, you fucking retard. There were no stars n the background, yet you can clearly see stars from Earth. lrn2research

Whoa. Norway actually has a higher GDP per capita than the US.

I didnt know that!

>>3959817
Norway could to if it wanted:
http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/06/10/norways-oil-fund-now-worlds-biggest/

The thing is, Norway is mostly interested in improving its people's lives and country infrastructure.
While USA is mostly interested in sensless wars and bailing out financial groups who robbed it in the first place.

>>3959828
>implying that an overall reduction in scientific capacity and research is desirable
Yeah yeah, DARPA is nice and all but I'd still like a reinvigorated and busy NASA upfront.

Guys

Guys

How about

How about we stop spending over half the year budget on defence

Oh, sorry, I forgot, if we did that people wouldn't be able to roll around screaming AMERICA STRONG at the top of their voices, which is clearly more important than having a decent quality of life, good infrastructure and all the rest.

Fuck this country. Everyone should secede.

>>3959828
>implying most research is military first civilian second instead of the other way around

>>3959835
Breaking up in 50 little shitty countries is a horrible idea. We'd be like Europe junior.

>>3959825
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita

Guys don't forget about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESA

I feel really sorry for Webb and Kepler. These telescopes could have changed the perception of whole humanity with finding another Earth's there in the sky...

>>3959838
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita
>nominal%29_per_capita
>per_capita

That isn't what you originally said. Nobody disputed that.

>>3959836
It should be military first, civilian second. Civilians are fucking retarded.

>>3959835
FUCK YEAH PACIFICA
Though I'd prefer Cascadia.

>>3959837
What about breaking up into two or three? The United States of America isn't awfully united.

>>3959843
Because the military is totally not fucking retarded. Right?

>>3959843
-15/10

>>3959838

Per capita is different than what you said.

But I do admit that I was surprised by the per capita data

>>3959838
Some countries with better quality of life than USA:
-Sweden
-Switzerland
-Denmark
-Norway


But let's be honest, even some countries with lower GDP per capita have better life than USA, since they have universal health care and lack homicide like in Third World(which the USA has).

>>3959836
>Corporate first.
>Government first.

why break up america? It's a country full of morons, only great because of it's size united, take that away and you have a fat motherfucking africa

you got to be fucking kidding me

NASA is one of the only good things to come out of the US and its being shut down?

fuck this gay earth

>>3959847
You can command grunts more easily than plebs that watch Jersey Shore and listen to their hip-hop.

The US has an advantage of being economically integrated. Thats very great. Europe has been moving in that direction in the last 50 years because they are economically smart about that stuff.

But does that mean the US should be politically integrated? It seems really inappropriate to me.

我想搬到中国。

>>3959856

>implying that a group of people commanded are inherently better than an un-commanded group
> implying group > sum of individuals

>>3959860
Wǒ xiǎng bān dào zhōngguó.

>>3959856
>listen to their hip-hop.
>implying most of the military aren't Mexicans and Blacks that don't have the luxury of going and getting a B.A. in Political Science

>>3959861
It is. Unions kill things. Strip away most of a person's free will, or rule them under a different set of stricter laws, and productivity sky rockets.

>>3959862
wo ai ni

>Have triple the prison population per capita of any other country
>Spend hundreds of billions more then any other country on them
>Increasing crime rates and hundreds of billions in foreign costs for the "war on drugs" that hasn't fixed one thing
>Kill NASA with it's tiny budget that gives us the only glimmer of hope in the root eating troglodytes of normal society.
>Spend trillions more then they can afford so they can have penis flinging rights
>America

>>3959867
ni hao
ching chong ping pong
click clack wolobolo eeEEEEEeeEEeeeeEEeeEEeeEeeeEEeeeeeee

>>3959865

No its not. The freedom of individuals is more important than the productivity of individuals. If the individuals dont want their output, their is no point to being productive. So say the group is more important, is really to say you want to use people to attain some goal that isnt in the benefit of the people involved.

You are bad.

>>3959860
my mandarin is rusty, but you moving(?) to china

>Spend billions and billions on shit that doesn't mattter
>Can't even spend some on stuff that does

>implying anyone needed that space crap
>implying it wasn't just useless waste of money

>>3959861
They are.
Name a military or company that works without a chain of command.

What technologies has NASA brought out in the last two decades worth while? Not trolling or asking rhetorically. I seriously want to know. If it hasn't, then it needs to be scrapped. Let the military take over the space program (IE USAF Space Command), and open up privatized space programs. Shift the cost of running NASA to private corporations, and give government subsidies to those companies that meet what the government is looking for. Isn't that what NASA was all ready doing anyways? Just stream-line it more and cut out the middle man.

>>3959886
Finding answers to fundemental questions like "is there another Earth out there", won't be done by Military, or by Corporations(no profit).

>>3959883

Chain of command doenst imply the group is more important than the individuals. It just means the individuals agree to a certain level of authority.

>>3959882
>implying I won't telekinetically break your neck

>>3959883
Almost anything that involves decentralized design.

>>3959890
....That's your argument? That's a piss-poor one at best. "WE WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DREAM AGAIN."

I knew they should have kept the shuttle programme going. That way they would have an excuse to keep what little money was available to them.

>>3959890
>Corporations
I think you underestimate how much money could be made from off-world resource mining/industry

>>3959895
Except decentralized entities still have some semblance of a chain of command in their own little cells or groups.

>>3959896
What happens when you stop dreaming?
You stop looking ahead.
You innovate less.
Your society falls into a funk, usually causing many to be depressed.
I think we should allocate 0.5% to dreams. Don't you?

>>3959890
What a shitty example to defend NASA. That is of little value considering the fact that even if it existed we could never get to it. Corporations or military would never waste time on that because it is useless. Our tax dollars are not best spend merely satisfying your intellectual curiosity.

>>3959892
So, you're saying you can't name a single one?

Why do you think that is?

>>3959890
You seem to think corporations are all about profit. Are you retarded, or just dumb? I can't tell.

>>3959903
>never
oh bollocks

>>3959903
Yeah, go back to killing yoursefl with firearms. I guess this excites USians more these days.
Oh well, China-EU dominance over planet seems a more promising future. At least they care about science more.

>>3959896
>implying the unwashed masses that watch prime-time TV dream

>>3959906

>>3959899
You must be joking, we won't be able to travel to other solar systems in anything beyond simple probes for centuries.

>>3959905

No, I am refusing to answer because of the premise of the question.

I just wanted to disagree with the notion that productive is more important than freedom, or that the group is more important than the individuals. The chain of command is irrelevant.

>>3959902
First off, [citation needed], and that is a bunch of psychfag hippie garbage. Second off, no, you shouldn't invest 0.5% of the GDP into a useless, rhetorical space program when that space program itself outsources its work to the very corporations you seem to dislike. Get the stick out of your ass.

>>3959909
The G2 century refers to China and the US, not China and Europe, hth. Keep dreaming.

I freed all of my cells!

They can do whatever they want now!

My body is awesome!

>>3959886

and what do they have to gain from space exploration?

There used to be a firm belief that the arms race would go into space. Now we are fighting dirty bearded oafs camped out in caves and mountain passes. There is demand for people-killing technology, not rockets.

>>3959917
>citation
>U.S. Office of Management and Budget

>>3959922
Where did the OMB say:
>"What happens when you stop dreaming?
>You stop looking ahead.
>You innovate less.
>Your society falls into a funk, usually causing >many to be depressed."
Where did the OMB recommend we allocate 0.5% of GDP for dreams?

>>3959917
>thinks those corporations would exist if NASA lost all its funding
>implying SpaceX isn't still locked firmly to the teat of the US Treasury

>>3959919
>keep dreaming
>U.S. GDP/Expenditure ratio that of some 3rd world countries
>ohtheirony

>>3959924
What/Who does OMB stand for?

>>3959924
>0.5%

>>3959930
Lol, it means the Office of Management and Budget, as noted in the post I quoted, prolesef.

>>3959932
>implying that is what the above poster meant when he asked for a citation about dreams

>>3959837
>Breaking up in 50 little shitty countries is a horrible idea. We'd be like Europe junior.

Except a lot of states have larger economies ON THEIR OWN than a lot of eurozone countries

Imagine your state not losing at least half of its revenue to military cock juggling and messing around in stuff that doesn't concern us. Imagine having your own currency and not having to worry about a gang of paedo fucks in washington and new york constantly meddling with it. Imagine not being told what you can and can't do by people on the other side of the country who aren't acting in your interest anyway.
And it wouldn't have to be done on state lines alone. Regions with similar interests could join together, benefiting everyone.

In opposition
>hurr durr stars and stripes forever hur durr flag flag flag

>>3959933
Ah.

>>3959921
DARPA-related projects:
Asteroid Mining Projects
Mass Drivers
Personal Craft capable of Escape and Re-Entry

Source: Google. Look it up before you make accusations, retard.

This thread:
Kids who enjoyed science class.
V.S.
Kids who have lived in light pollution their whole life and never see a star beside the sun.

>>3959919
USA doesn't have a future.
I can seriously see it being used as mercenary by other world powers, buying its military(the only area in which USA will still have some achievements) so that it can pay for its debt and keep afloat its economy.
Otherwise a pretty standard barely-above-Third-World status country(let's face it homicide is already on Third World levels, plus it doesn't have health care).

>>3959938
Yes, I believe California and the Oregon region would make a very nice country-liberal, high-tech.

>>3959949
...
How would such a secession even begin?

>>3959944
Policymakers shouldn't give a fuck about stars, they should care about making sound investments with taxpayer dollars.

>>3959946

I get that you're trying to shitstir here and try to make yourself feel better about being from someplace that uses monkey rocks for legal tender, but USA doesn't have "some" achievements in military prowess.

This is just off the top of my head, but don't we spend more on our military than every single other country in the world COMBINED?

>>3959944
>implying those two are mutually exclusive.

>>3959954
Like nuclear power.
Not fighting unsustainable wars.
Not bailing out banks without imposing new restrictions and laws which prevent the problem in question from happening again.
Raising taxes on the rich.
Providing a public option for healthcare so the largest cause of bankruptcies disappears.
Doing all they can to get us off foreign oil and phasing out fossil fuels.
Actually regulating any industry worth a damn.

Before you come to NASA and science, perhaps you should tackle those multiple 800 pound gorillas.

>>3959965
>Nuke-ular power is evil.
Confirmed hippie.

>>3959954
Like spending tens of trillions on destabilizing a region that is already a powder keg right?

Research doesn't always have foreseeable benefits, many of the things we use today(touch phones, MRIs, etc) where all developed as a bi-product of something completely different.

>>3959938

I would love living in a city state as much as the next guy, but there's plenty of huge practical difficulties that have nothing to do with "hurr patriotism" that you can come up with if you know anything about how the government works and you think about it for more than two seconds. Hell, even in 1860 we were too entangled with one another, and it's only gotten orders of magnitude more so since then.

The only way around it is to have separate sovereignties that have so many jointly held assets and agreements that they are a de facto nation state anyway.

>>3959967
I don't even understand how you scraped off 'anti-nuclear' from 'more nuclear energy.'
I'm a pretty vocal liquid fluoride thorium reactor supporter both on /sci/ and in real life.

>>3959954
Knowledge has no negative cost, only it's application does.

I think all states should be sovereign nations and the "United States" should just be a series of non-agression pacts and trade agreements.

>>3959953
Some states are already kicking up a fuss about secession occasionally. One was even talking about starting a new currency regardless, based on gold mined in state (Can't remember which)
And would a modern USA really invade a state that left the union, if that state had a positive, free and fair referendum?
Bullshit they would.

>>3959965
Also confirmed retard. There are reasons we are still using fossil fuels. We aren't "dependent" on foreign oil and fossil fuels. It is thus far just cheaper to get them from other countries. The US is sitting on its own vast oil reserves in many different forms. They are just more expensive to process. Cleaner ways of extraction are being found every year. You need to learn basic economics, too. When the price of foreign oil becomes too high, companies will start investing more into producing oil out of our own country. Oh, and every decade, they say we are running our of oil (for almost 100 years now), but every few years, we find more ways of getting what we need. Our supplies will last for far longer. Honestly, lrn2innovation, too. And stop being a stupid tripfag.

>>3959978
Yeah, the Articles of Confederation didn't work out, but thanks for the suggestion.

>>3959983
Exactly. There's always going to be someone that will attempt to subvert that for power.

>>3959980
>Petroleum reserves that could barely last a decade independently.
Sounds like a long term plan to me.

Protip: Canada is the only place the U.S. will be able to get oil reserves large enough for any long term period that isn't from a conflict area.

>>3959980
>Also confirmed retard. There are reasons we are still using fossil fuels. We aren't "dependent" on foreign oil and fossil fuels. It is thus far just cheaper to get them from other countries. The US is sitting on its own vast oil reserves in many different forms. They are just more expensive to process. Cleaner ways of extraction are being found every year. You need to learn basic economics, too. When the price of foreign oil becomes too high, companies will start investing more into producing oil out of our own country.

You spend over a trillion dollars every year on oil imports. I think you should fix that.

>Oh, and every decade, they say we are running our of oil (for almost 100 years now), but every few years, we find more ways of getting what we need. Our supplies will last for far longer. Honestly, lrn2innovation, too. And stop being a stupid tripfag.
So you want to actually make Violent Simian's point come true, where humanity reacts to slowly because they think it'll last for ages until oil becomes expensive and it's much harder/more expensive to do anything? And don't DERP ITS ECONOMICS DUMBO me. I know full well that when something else becomes cheaper that the change automatically begins happening. But there's still that period of bullshit where both technologies/resources are still expensive.

>>3959990
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcWkN4ngR2Y&feature=channel_video_title

>>3959990
To be fair, replacing oil use for shale gas in as many places as possible will probably ensure dominance of fossil fuels for a century or so.
And USA has lots and lots of shale gas.
But yes, most of deposits are abroad.
Not to mention we have whole continent that so far remains untouched by mining-Antarctica.
And Arctic seabed of course.
The whole Oil Peak won't really happen in forseeable future.

>>3959999
But what about global warming? We need nuclear NOW.

>Word has leaked out
This is all they needed to say for me to completely ignore the rest.

>>3959996
You really got nothing that was said to you, did you? You can put hypothetical situations into place all you want, it doesn't make you right. Your arguments hold no water, when those presented to you have been continually shown through history. More alternate uses of energy production will also be looked in to and grow more efficient as things grow more profitable. Capitalism and Free-trade (with as little government intervention as possible) will work out, and something suddenly won't happen to make things go OMG WTF JUST HAPPENED?! Get your head out of your ass. You seem to be the kind of person who thinks we should regulate every little thing.

Who the fuck needs NASA?
Seriously, we have bigger problems than space travel right now.

>>3959998
>It will all work and the economy will magically create the materials to balance itself
This is why economics shouldn't be a science, it just historical statistics trying to guess result in waters that haven't even been sailed in yet.

>>3959999
>The whole Oil Peak won't really happen in forseeable future.

Most now think it happened around 2005.

Peak oil isn't really about how much is left, but how easy it is to get and how fast it can be extracted. All the easy to get stuff is gone or nearly gone. You could be sitting on the greatest oil reserve in history, but if you can't get it out of the ground quick enough then things start to fall apart.
We've been finding less oil than we've been using for decades now. Most of it still comes from mammoth fields that are peaking or peaked a while back.

Come on China, hurry up and put your weapons into space.

I guarantee the US would put billions into their own space militarisation efforts.

>>3959999
>Not to mention we have whole continent that so far remains untouched by mining-Antarctica.
First you have mile-thick ice you have to tunnel through to get to it. Then you have nearly no infrastructure on Antarctica so you have to build it from scratch, which costs a lot, driving up the price.
Then any meaningful amount of mining would generate heat which would melt the surrounding ice, flooding the mining complex as well as speed melting of the polar icecaps and destroy the surrounding ecosystem (if any.)

>And Arctic seabed of course.
If you're talking about drilling platforms, entirely impractical. First you have to make it in the ARCTIC, which freezes over every winter. That ice moves, which destroys the structural integrity of the well quickly. Then it's still a few thousand meters to the bottom of the arctic seabed, where there probably is enough oil in the entirety of the arctic/ANWR to supply the United States with oil for half a year.

>The whole Oil Peak won't really happen in forseeable future.
Oil is shitty for more reasons than 'It'll run out someday.'

Nice derail, faggots.

Honestly, it's a shame NASA is getting axed even further, but I can see the need. Sure, other programs could be cut and hold a larger impact (0.5% is hardly even worth mentioning), but the government doesn't work that way.

Over the last two decades, what advances has NASA contributed outside of 'dream fuel?'

>>3960013
Wait about 3-5 years when we start running out of the rare earths that we use to build almost all our technology. You'll get to see the "OMG WTF JUST HAPPENED?! personally. Nobody is addressing it at all.

>>3960017
As I said, there is a whole continent untouched by exploration. A US geological study in 1990 IIRC(I could google it up in google books) estimated that mega-oil fields are in Antarctica and that they will be profitable at 100 dollars per barrel.
That's the extreme example. Also oil is being replaced by gas, and we have shale gas in abundant numbers.
There is nothing really true about Peak Oil, it's just a form of meme or religion that gets modified for its followers to keep chanting.
As long as they are oil reserves or fossil fuel reserves we can keep exploring them, the human laws and determination the only limiting factor.

>>3960024
Still cheaper than space travel.

>>3960013
ITT: Faith and ad hominems.

>>3960024
>Ice
Global warming will fix it.

>Bluh bluh drills get broke
Lawls no.

>Oil is shitty for more reasons than 'It'll run out someday.'
No, oil is not shitty. The devices we use are shitty and inefficient. Oil and gas are just the fuels. The problem is the current level of technology. Things are steadily improved upon and made more reliable, efficient, and 'green.'

>>3960025
http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html

>>3959953
The Soviet union disintegrated practically overnight into independent countries. Empires always fall apart into smaller regions. The Balkans split up into smaller functioning nations. The UK lost southern Ireland and will probably lose Scotland in the next few decades.

A financial crisis on a large scale could easily result in the country disintegrating. Most important stuff is handled on a state level, in state anyway. The transition between slave state and independent nation really wouldn't be that difficult, and it's not impossible because it happens all over the world all the time.

>>3960024
>First you have mile-thick ice you have to tunnel through to get to it.

You must be joking or are very ignorant. Pic related

>>3960041
Most of those were more than 20+ years ago.

>>3960028
>There is nothing really true about Peak Oil

Unless you think oil is a magically infinite resource, there's no way it cannot be true.

>>3960025
-The most efficient insulation that is made from one of the most common elements on Earth
-Massive advancements in laser-optics and spectroscopy
-Subsurface scanning technology that is used for industrial/commercial/civil purposes.
-Global weather systems/records/research that save millions of lives a year
-etc

>>3960040
>cheers the progress of melting polar ice caps for DRILL BABY DRILL in Antarctica

No honestly. You just lost all right to speak to me ever again. I will no longer respond to you (knowingly.)

>>3960061
Yes, you will.

>>3960061
Fuck Antarctica. I want my oil. You can't even roast penguins for food. The continent can die, I fucking don't care.

>>3960071
>no face
>all within 5-10 years

>>3960061
Lol hey guys, we finally found a way to make this tripfag shut up!

>>3960078
>all within 1000 days
ftfy

>>3960061
So long technophobe, go hug a tree or something.

>>3960028
You do realise WHY Antarctica is untouched, right? There was an agreement 20-odd years ago, which is still in force, still in place, and is going absolutely fucking nowhere. You honestly think, if there weren't regulations in place to save it, Antarctica wouldn't have been exploited by now?

>>3960077

/pol/ is that way, bro. We actually think before we speak here instead of shouting 'edgy' bullshit.

>DERP DERP I'M AGAINST ABORTION BUT FOR KILLING BABIES, HURRRRR

>>3960088
>Antarctica is untouched

So is your penis.

>>3960049
Empires split up when certain parts don't see any benefit to remaining, or the negatives outweigh those benefits.

Keep them happy with perks they only get in a union, and they'll stay.

>>3960088
>regulations
>implying America can't boss other developed nations around
We only have trouble with asymmetric warfare.

>>3960088
Treaties can be scrapped like toilet paper.

>new party required

>>3960087
>Thinks i'm anti-technology because I don't want to tear up the planet for a fuel that emits so much pollution that is visibly affects the climate eof the whole planet, causing climate change which speeds up aridification, flooding, and loss of glaciers for massive rivers for population bases in Asia and so on

>>3960094
>perks they only get in a union

such as?

>>3960087

>I don't want Los Angeles to be nine feet below the surface of the ocean just for ten more years of oil.
>HYURRRRRR TREEHUGGER

I hate you. Please die.

>>3960104
>responding after he said he wouldn't

Lol at this mad faggot.

>>3960106
>Russian professor
>Alaska to Russia

That's a pretty nice touch there! But realistically, Alaska would go to Canada, there is absolutely no reason it would go to Russia.

>>3960106
Imagine a small nation joining a massive one.

The boost to the smaller ones economy is massive.

>>3960111
Yes, I am angry.
Perhaps you should ask why I'm angry.
Because I have to put up with people that would axe NASA first instead of a fraction of the Department of Defense budget, and when faced with the fact that importing oil costs a fuckton and pollutes, is just like 'I don't care. Fuck the planet.'

That would be fine and all if I didn't have to be left with the fucking mess your backward thinking got us into.

>>3960097
>>3960096

China could beat us and survive and Russia could beat us with a kamikaze attack.

MURRICA STRONG, but it ain't THAT strong.

>>3959938
>Except a lot of states have larger economies ON THEIR OWN than a lot of eurozone countries

found the map

>>3960104
Inurdaes, shut up you stupid fucking faggot.

Stop giving the troll attention, and stop being such a thoughtless child. God, do you even think? You just chant your views endlessly. They're good view, mind, but FUCK.

>>3960024
>First you have mile-thick ice you have to tunnel through to get to it.
Pro-tip: you use hydrogen bombs to create easy accessible craters in ice shelf.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

That Antarctica will open up its riches to us, like a slut opens its legs on a school prom. Yihaaaa.

>>3960118
You honestly believe that China and Russia would invade?

Been playing too much COD lad.

>>3960084

>two decades is now 1000 days
>herp

>>3960121
Come at me bro. I'll respond to anyone I want, even if they're trolls.

>>3960118
>>3960118
...You haven't looked at some numbers lately, have you?

America is the uncontested world military power, and nothing in the near future will change that. No other nation holds a candle to the US in strength of war. Hell, no other GROUP of nations but the three biggest compares, and even then it doesn't compare favorably.

>>3960122
>using nukes to get to oilfields in antartica

I have no face

>>3960127
Stop it right now or I'll stop loving you!

>>3960104
'Climate' change was bound to happen whether or not humans put in their only thing. At best we sped things up. Hurp durp, we're between ice-ages, anyways.

>>3960128
>No other nation holds a candle to the US in strength of war
HAHAHAHA O WOW. MY SIDES. HAHAHAHAHA. OMG HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

>>3960131
Implying this isn't epic like fuck.

>>3960128
Whatever numbers you've got doesn't matter. Both the US and Russia have more than enough nukes to take out the other.

>>3960120
That map says nothing.
California is bigger than France, the UK and Germany aren't even on the map.
Shitty countries like Brazil are on the map.

>>3960123

China? If we tried to muscle in exclusively on an icecap, disregarding a treaty we'd made with the entire world?

Yeah, they would. That's not...They're not afraid of us, dude. This isn't fucking Best Korea. This is China.

>>3960133
Was that BRO on the end of the trip an accident? I'm impressed.

>At best we sped things up.
Way faster than the natural rate, which causes mass die-offs in ecosystems. And our current civilization isn't equipped to move entire population bases around as climate conditions worsen in many tropical nations. There will be wars. There will be scarcity of basic resources if we don't use the best technologies possible. And how likely is that, given the world today?

>>3960142
Implying China wouldn't be the first to strip mine Antarctica if such suggestion would be laid out to them.

>>3960142
I'm a usually a CCP shill around here, but LOL, what is China going to do to the USA with its LMAO1Aircraftcarrier?

>>3960111

Seriously, bro. There's a link to /pol/ right there in red text bellow the top banner. You'll like it a lot better there. You can bitch there all you want about how much you hate jews and facts.

>>3960142
see pic.
This is correct, though the current political climate needs to be taken into consideration.

>>3960024
>Then you have nearly no infrastructure on Antarctica so you have to build it from scratch,

We have the technology, we can do it faggot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chariot_(1958)

>>3960144
Then Darwinian theories come into play. Other species will adapt and fill the void left over from those that disappear, and humans may very well finally be culled back to a few million.

>>3960155

FUCK.

The "correct" was supposed to be in reply to >>3960140

>>3960142 is just plain fucking retarded.

>>3960158
LOL. Oil goes to 100 per barrel=humanity gets extinct, rather than dig up oil reserves in USA or Antarctica or shale oil and gas.
Ecofags are sure retarded.

This does not surprise me in the slightest, I mean we are talking about America right?

>>3960141
The point is that individual states have larger, more powerful economies than other entire countries

>>3960158
>thinks it's desirable for civilization for humanity to regress to a few million people

...Are you for real?

Here is how we would create underground bases in Antarctica to house our brave miners drilling for that precious black gold

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mNsJw1aH-A

>>3960175
He is an ecofag. They usually hate humanity.

>>3960169
Found another

>>3960169
And some european cities have more powerful economies than american states. So?
It doesn't mean anything.

>>3960150
If any of the major nations fought, you really think the navy or army would play a part in it?

It would be a battle of who can defend against the most missiles.

>>3960185
And then there's the Vatican City...

>>3960187
>implying China is going to nuke us over some Antarctican oil
No. If anything, they'd just start mining too, and it would be a race to extract as much as they could.

>>3960120

WHOAH, what the FUCK happened to Russia's economy!?

How the fuck are we supposed to feel heroic when we beat them now? That's not a fair fucking fight, and I'll be DAMNED if we become best frienemies with China and their ching chong nip nong. The Russian Bear was a worthy rival for the American Eagle, but China SUCKS.

>>3960185
Are you fucking dense? Go back and read the other posts. The point is that independent states would be more than capable of sustaining themselves as individual countries.

Jesus Christ you're a fucking idiot. Read the fucking thread before you apply your fat sausage fingers to your filthy keyboard you cunt horse.

>>3960184
Also
>mfw my country has double the GDP per capita of the US

>>3960175

I don't mean to be 'that' Malthusfag but it'd be a lot more sustainable.

>>3960194
I don't think any war would happen over Antarctica.

But if a war did happen between the US and China, it would involve nukes.

>>3959814
Tiny irrelevant Swiss speaking : CERN, ETHZ, EPFL.

Game. Set. Match.

>>3960206
Its more likely that USA and China would cooperate on opening Antarctican riches for the benefit of humankind.

Which ecofags would try to sabotage(they hate humanity).

Haha, I laugh at you fucking spacetards raging.
Now comes the time of more realistic and useful research.

>>3960187

No, that's stupid. We don't fight wars of extermination anymore; nobody does. Not since Hitler ruined it for everybody. Wars are wars of conquest now and it doesn't do anybody any good if the country you'd like to strip mine is radioactive.

Going to bring some /pol/s to this thread, hold on

>>3960209
I agree with you.

I was just making the point that such major nations are beyond conventional warfare with each other.

>>3960201
What would be more sustainable is if humanity had extremely cheap, plentiful, and 'green' electricity, so we could use sustainable stuff such as vertical farms, plasma gasification waste units and vehicles that run on carbon-neutral fuels, and recycled WORTH A DAMN. Earth would easily support 20 billion if we get our shit together.

>>3960196
Russia's economy was a joke even at the height of the Soviet empire. They just did quite a good job of hiding it.

>>3960208
Come on, you can't expect anyone else to compete with Sweden.

>>3960208
>CERN
>Swiss

Just because 1/3 of the Meyrin site happens to be within your shitty country doesn't make it Swiss. You're barely contributing anything to its funding, probably less than 4%.

What does this mean for Hubble?

>>3960226
Because land is free.

>>3960214
You think our technology is that barbaric? We have so much control over our weapons, we can anticipate damage, decide exactly what to use and how to use it to get the job done with minimal damage. We can take out military installations without damaging the surrounding areas.

I never suggested we'd just sweep the entire place with missiles, that's pointless and stupid.

>>3960229
Scrapped or sold off to another country/institution.

>>3960219
>Earth would easily support 20 billion if we get our shit together.

Yeah, that'd be really nice, wouldn't it?

>>3960209

>the benefit of humankind

The top 0.002% is an amazing view on what constitutes humankind.

OH GOD YES TRICKLE DOWN YOUR ECONOMICS INTO MY FACE AND MOUTH

>>3959637
Oh look, you improved my image from the last thread.

>>3960245
More resources help everyone.

>>3960244
Yes, yes it would.

The higher the population, the better, so long as we can support it.

>>3960245
I think more people use oil than just 0.002%
Using Antarctica to fuel humanites needs benefits everyone.

>>3960237

A rifle behind every blade of grass.

You really think China would have the patience to do the Iraq thing, dealing with hostile and profoundly armed insurgents for decades at a time?

>>3960253
>The higher the population, the better, so long as we can support it.

From what point of view? Quality of life would certainly decrease dramatically

>>3960253
The lower the population, the better, so long as we can still maintain a functional society.

Lower population = higher possibility of control. High population leads to chaos.

>>3960238
( ._.)

>>3960257
>A rifle behind every blade of grass
You don't think that's been done before?

Demoralising tactics. There would be no invaders, the country would descend into chaos for a while, then China would come to the citizens 'rescue'.

I noticed some of the maps of the new US countries.

I can only comment about Arizona since thats where I live.

It seems like Arizona, Las Vegas area, and Southern California could easily be one state. They are all culturally kind of similar.

...And I guess New Mexico could come too since I have no idea where else it would be. As far as I can tell no one lives in New Mexico.

>>3960253
I'd prefer a higher standing of living and not having to tear the meat off the bones of mother Earth.

I'n my ideal future Earth is no longer a population center but a natural reserve, preserving Earth's biological, geological, and anthropological history for the eons ahead. That means limiting humanity to just a few billion, concentrated in dense urban environments, and hundreds of billions of humans living in colonies across the solar system.

Also I wish I could stay and talk with you guys. But I am going to bed.

Good night friends.

>>3960268
>As far as I can tell no one lives in New Mexico

mfw

>>3960271
>I'n my ideal future Earth is no longer a population center but a natural reserve, preserving Earth's biological, geological, and anthropological history for the eons ahead. That means limiting humanity to just a few billion, concentrated in dense urban environments, and hundreds of billions of humans living in colonies across the solar system.
Oh my god yes

>>3960260
More people is better, so long as they are all well educated and productive. It's all about productivity.

>>3960260
>Quality of life would certainly decrease dramatically
Feel free to elaborate. Remember, under the assumption that we have the ability to support a 20 billion strong population.

>>3960261
>High population leads to chaos.
I've never seen a situation where a country has descended into chaos because the population was high (even while the country could support it).

>>3960271

>mother earth

I see where you're coming from, and I agree with you, but don't ever call it that. If people think nature is their friend, they REALLY don't need an enemy.

>>3960260
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bIQLiKi3g

The same guy that made the article of this thread's OP.

>>3960281
I've never seen a large country that is not chaotic.

>>3960286

Fuck you for making me say it, but: China.

>>3960286
Political and socioeconomic systems are not yet evolved to properly deal with multi-billion populations because we haven't yet been faced with it. China is a crude version of a version that works because they've been forced into the situation.

>>3960281
Personally, and I know I'm not alone here, one of the prerequisites of a good quality of life is living space. With a population of 20 billion, you've either all have to live in horrible pod cities eating nutritious gloop from a dispenser or build over every square mile of the entire planet.
Either way would be horrible.

>>3960287
>>3960288
Only rural China is orderly, and that's because it has a low population density. The cities are as chaotic, if not more, as the west.

>>>/pol/85459
Which dumb cunt tried to direct the morons on /pol/ to this board.
Expecting this to become a racist shit thread.

the $700B stimulus is equivalent to (or more than) NASAs 50 year budget.

Source: Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Bill Maher.

>>3960290
Well, an even better point would be that resources are limited, hence the higher the population, the lower the resources pro capita, the lower the quality of life.

>>3960282
I wanted to be graphic with "tear the meat off the bones", and that naturally lead to anthropomorphizing Earth. Killing one's own mother for sustenance seemed like a sufficiently graphic concept for my purposes.

Sorry if it came off as hippy-ish.

>>3960290
Really, living space is not an issue. There is a shitload of land mass to go around (In habitable areas).

Resources are the main issue. Hence the need for renewable energy sources.

>>3960288
But China doesn't work. It's a disaster zone. There are so many demographic, environmental and social problems it beggars belief.
The quality of life for the average Chinese is terrible.

>>3960300
But that could be improved and sustained, even with their high population.

If you're prepare for a high population, you can succeed with one.

>>3959820
>>3959820
>>3959820
>lets face it, america isnt a place people dont want to immigrate to
Tell that to the millions of asshats flooding america from all over the world, I've seen more Europeans living here than ever.

>>3960299
I just learned that the outermost layer of Earth that is composed of soil, is called the "Pedosphere".

>>3960290
No not necessarily. Yes, there would be more skyscrapers but there are a lot of places on Earth that are sparsely inhabited. Areas like Wyoming, mid-Canada, much of Russia, on seasteads, or undersea. Or perhaps in the deserts and the icecaps with domes over them? With vertical farming you can greatly decrease aridification and the sapping of nutrients from soil by overfarming. Requires little water, relatively few nutrients, and ends up great and disease-free. But only is this economical in a world where electricity is dirt cheap. You don''t have to see some weird Tokyo crap. And much of the world's population isn't in cities. OH YEAH, AND AFRICA!

>>3960285
That guy is only piss and vinegar these days. I kind of feel bad for him now that him seeing a Mars landing is almost completely out of the realm of feasibility.

>>3960299
>There is a shitload of land mass to go around

Right, so we're going to build over all the arable land, forests, wilderness, nature reserves, etc.
Presumably well grow all our food in vats?

Enjoy your hell on earth. You're making Malthusian predictions sound good.

>>3960307
Wouldn't it mean it's composed of children?

>obama
>2012 election candidate
fuck this country

>>3960293

>Which dumb cunt tried to direct the morons on /pol/ to this board.

see

>>3960216

>>3960313
You think a population of 20 billion would take all that up?

>>3960300

>But China doesn't work. It's a disaster zone. There are so many demographic, environmental and social problems it beggars belief.
The quality of life for the average Chinese is terrible.

You dont know much about China, do you? Their demographic is ideal (population destined to diminish), environment is getting better (and Id take fucked up environment with strong economy over undeveloped natural reservation with shit standard of life), and poverty has been largely eradicated in past decade or two.

They are an example for every developing country to follow.

>>3960314
That's the proper name.

>>3960300

Oh no, it's godawful, I agree.

I'm just saying, it's not chaotic. They're pinned down by the burning couch that is an overtly oppressive government. No one riots because they get blackbagged and sent to mine gold in farmcraft for the rest of their life.

That's what you have to look forward to, America. This is your life.

We should have executed the CEOs of every single multinational decades ago to make a point. The lion bares it's teeth and the hyenas back away.

>>3960326
>blackbagged and sent to mine gold in farmcraft for the rest of their life.
Send Notch there.

>>3960313
You're too busy trying to find reasons that it wouldn't work that you've spent no time finding out if it is possible to sustain such a massive population.

If we prepare for it, it's entirely possible.

>>3960324
Have you been to China? I'm guessing not. I have. It's horrible.

>>3960335

No one's saying that it's not possible. ANYTHING is fucking POSSIBLE. But it wouldn't be tolerable.

ron pol 2012

>>3960344
One of the first countries to have such a large population and they couldn't handle it.

Well, from history we know that if it couldn't be done the first time, it's impossible.

>>3960344
Shelteredfag detected. Look at the numbers, it has improved drastically in such a short period of time.

Didn't some private guy from Visa(?) launch a rocket in space for a fraction of the Nasa price?

>>3960351
Oh no, the /pol/ shitstorm is coming

>>3960324
>poverty has been largely eradicated in past decade or two.

You have literally no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Like...NONE. It's actually blowing my mind a little bit that you'd have the audacity to make a claim that's so hideously false RIGHT ON IT'S FACE.

>>3960354
SpaceX are already doing it.

The Skylon project promises to do it even cheaper than any rocket can.

>>3960356
I dunno what numbers he was looking at, but poverty headcounts have halved in ten years.

http://www.worldbank.org/research/2008/08/9794547/rising-income-inequality-china-race-top

>>3960353

More people per capita have running water in the most bombed out shitholes in the middle east than do the people in China not living int he capital.

What a fucking nightmare.

>>3960344

No more horrible than any other developing nation. Stop comparing China to top 10 %, but compare them to other developing nations instead. They are among the best.

"Since the start of far-reaching economic reforms in the late 1970s, growth has fueled a remarkable increase in per capita income and a decline in the poverty rate from 85% in 1981 to 16% in 2005 (poverty being defined as the number of people living on < $1.25/day)."

>>3960326
Economic situation != Cultural situation

>kill the CEO's
I was actually thinking about this. What if we used how much money a person earns or produces within the average lifetime, about $1.2 million plus, as a metric of sentencing? If a person stole and then squandered $1.2 million from others then he or she would be charged with murder. If $1.2 billion were stolen and squandered then that would be a borderline crime against humanity.

>>3960365
China is doing better now, but don't just look at growth please there is more.
The USSR also had a very nice growth for a long time and the economy was growing, the military.
If you draft everybody zero unemployment and nothing to eat.

>>3960366
Don't kill the CEOs. Just make all the industry owned by the state, and make the state ran democratically, and not in an authoritarian manner like in the former Soviet Union. Reinvest a large portion of the state industry profits into an intensive space colonization program.

>>3960335
It would "work"

It'd just be not very nice at all.

It'd be far better for everyone concerned if we levelled off and then slowly reduced the population on a global scale. This happens automatically in developed countries, so you can hold your horses on the NWO tinfoil hatting and comparisons to nazis or whatever.
Population growth worldwide is already starting to slow, and the resource shortages and so forth we're expecting to come this century will hopefully slow the growth quicker.
We already have too many people for the planet to sustainably support. Seeing as it doesn't look like we'll be blasting off into space to off world colonies any time soon, if ever, it makes sense to ensure we can support our civilisation for as long as possible, with the best achievable quality for life for everyone. You're not going to be able to do that with 20 billion people. Up until this thread I have never come across anyone even arguing that having such a large population would be a good thing, mainly because it's utterly demented.

>>3960371
>If you draft everybody zero unemployment and nothing to eat.
Kind of like North Korea... I hate that country so godam much.

>>3960365

>poverty being defined as the number of people living on < $1.25/day)."

...Seriously? Is that seriously your meter stick? The poorest fucking Afghani in all of Afghaniland makes ten times that collecting and selling the spent shellcasings of triggerhappy GI's. Your metric is FUCKED, bro.

>>3960324
>>3960324
>>3960371
>>3960371
So Im guessing you never have been to china.
Look up squatter toilets, youll see one reason.
Just because you hear china is doing better on paper or the news doesnt mean its true. China is ALL about Propaganda and looking better than it really is. Chinese propaganda has most of the world fooled too. also look up ghost cities in China, even some really optimistic Chinese citizens are fearing the worst for their country

>>>3960362

I dont think that is true. Chinese have better access to water and sanitation than for example, Pakistan. And it is growing fast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Pakistan

>>3960371
>The USSR also had a very nice growth for a long time and the economy was growing, the military.


The Soviet economy was based around increasing the economic inputs until the proper industrial sector employment would be met. During this industrialization era, or from the Stalin-era to the early Brezhnev-era, the Soviet economy grew as fast as the Japanese economy and significantly faster than that of the United States.

However, when the industrialization was complete, the economic growth slowed down and finally stagnated due to the fact that investing in further economic inputs lead to diminishing returns, as the country was already largely industrialized.

Apparently, the Soviet planners didn't think about investing in increasing the efficiency of production which accounts for most of the economic growth in most of the developed countries.

The Soviet Union would probably exist to the present day and probably surpass the US economic size if the planners would think of basing the investment strategy on increasing the efficiency of production. But what they did instead when their economy stagnated was to invest even more into industrialization.

This is why conducting open and active economic debate is important.

There's an elaborate essay on this topic, which is backed up by empirical evidence and uses the neoclassical economic growth theory to base it's claims off:
http://faculty.nps.edu/relooney/IMF_100.pdf

Central planning is a very viable and efficient system, as long as it uses a decentralized price system as well as a decentralized industrial output system for an efficient allocation of resources.

>>3960387
That's why I said, don't just look at growth.
The ghost cities make the economy grow.
But it's bad growth, worthless growth.
A bubble.

>>3960376

U just mad cuz they stylin' on you.

Hey libturds, where's your Obongo now?

>>3960389
You have to remember Hong Kong isn't part of China.

>>3960374
>It'd just be not very nice at all.
You keep saying that. But we barely cover any of this planet, it's not the space we use up that is a problem. It's the resources.

Start using renewable energy sources, vertical farms, growing our meat instead of requiring paddocks for animals.

It wouldn't be a problem, we would live very "nice" lives. Assuming we were prepared.

The report that recently came out by the unfpa demonstrated that we could support a 15 billion population.

>>3960371
As an aside, The west's growth hasn't been great the last couple of years. If you discount the amount of cash stimulus plans have injected into the system, growth has been negligible

>>3960393
But it's always easier said than done, especially after it already happened.
Price should never be decided by the government unless it's very limited (24 million kinds of goods is too much and bureaucracy is already slow)
And the Soviet Union didn't have a population to surpass the USA population unless the USA crashed for some reason.
But what kind of central planning do you mean?

>>3959810
>China and Canada are both set to overtake the U.S. in the next decade as leaders in world wealth production.
You obviously haven't met Canada.

>>3960379

>The poorest fucking Afghani in all of Afghaniland makes ten times that collecting and selling the spent shellcasings of triggerhappy GI's.

Not true, using the same metric, poverty in Afghanistan is 42-36 %, a lot more than in China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty

>>3959899
>I think you underestimate how much money could be made from off-world resource mining/industry
I think you underestimate the costs of hauling ore from other planets.

>>3960407
A bursted bubble.Keynesianism. Neoclassical also sometimes fails where it went wrong (cough Latvia 56% flat tax rate for workers(If you add everything up) they probably have the worst depression ever, even worse than the great depression.

>>3960430
Oh, Canada would just be really sorry about it afterwards. And we'd forgive them, because no one can stay mad at Canada.

>>3960427
>Price should never be decided by the government unless it's very limited (24 million kinds of goods is too much and bureaucracy is already slow)

Exactly. This is my point and this is the origin of the socialist calculation debate. The solution is to have central planning to allocate the factors of production, while giving the price decision responsibility to the distributing enterprises, so that the price would be set decentrally and would attain the market-clearing prices and consequently attain rational allocation of resources.

>>3960448
I'm ok with that.

>>3960453
Socialistic economies are bound to have higher growth by the way, due to the fact that they have access to the entire profit of the industry and can re-invest it on the industrialization by capital accumulation and productivity improvement by innovation.

Of course, if one doesn't allocate the resources to the productivity improvement, then, as predicted by the neoclassical economic theory, diminishing returns would follow. And this was exactly the case in the Soviet Union - enormous growth followed by stagnation.

>>3960453
Just to give you an idea how much it was in accordance with the theory. 0 equals stagnation (0 state capital investment return). Now, as we see the clear reason for the stagnation and consequent failure, we can easily correct it.