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Originally Posted by jorgelito
Isn't this just evolution, or Darwinism in action? In other words, removing all empathy and emotions aside, is this not just the natural order of things. The life cycle if you will. Famines happen, natural disasters occur, living things move around. On a human level, yes there are other inputs and stimuli that may contribute to disaster etc too. War, politics, economics etc..
Whether AIDS, cancer, small pox, bubonic plague, influenza, whatever, there will always be something that "culls" the human herds just like diseases that affect the flora and fauna of our planet.
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This is a good point, but let's not leave out one significant aspect of evolutionary theory: the survival of the fittest. In our case, the fitness we will require is our ability to adapt to a changing environment within the backdrop of our sometimes disruptive activities. Human innovation as far back as the advent of agriculture is something without which we would not be where we are today. There are other innovations coming down the pipeline that will increase our evolutionary fitness—that is if we can overcome the bad things within nature and within ourselves.
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Originally Posted by Seaver
Hm.... The largest expansion of population in the history of history was accompanied by the largest expansion of the quality of life, life expectancy, innovation, and economic progress in the history of history.
EVERYONE PANIC!
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Will's right; this is a fallacy. But you bring up an interesting point, nonetheless. As I've mentioned above, human innovation is a factor that is crucial to this issue. Human expansion should be coupled with innovation that allows us to program sustainability into our existence. In order for us to thrive (I would argue that we aren't exactly thriving at the moment), we will need to live in such a way that avoids compromising our "evolutionary fitness" within the world.