Yeah and today is Sunday meaning they have to spend more money for the fix ups because it's Sunday.

We have MOLD in a bathroom, coming in from the wood. That's gonna be a BIG financial deal. Ostriching it till we can try to staunch off some of it. Fix it? No way is that even in our future. *EDIT* Yes, I know mold is a baddie. We try to treat the stuff on the paint... but it's a losing battle. We need a bathroom renovation but we're just middle class, we don't do vacay's with our political oppenents.... so when it comes to mold we can just "suck it up" & "get a life" *finish edit*

The rich get richer and we keep digging our own damn ditches.

(((((Shaz))))))

Easier said than done.

I have to quibble on one small point: while capitalism is a big problem (and a system in its death throes imo), the problem is and always has been sociopaths. They are rewarded with success no matter the system in which they reside. They don't care who they step on or over, nary a worry about the consequences of their narcissistic behavior.

If it's genetic, maybe we can figure out how to screen it out. If it's more nurture than nature, we are pretty much doomed because changing behavior learned in families takes generations to correct, if it can be corrected at all.

and they're going away at exponential rates. We have squandered our patrimony and are fighting each other for the scraps. This road has only two ends, bad and worse.

The bad scenario is the enforced return of a surviving handful to a subsistence, pre-industrial existence "from which we will never again have an iron age, or bronze age, etc." - there will be nothing left to pull us out of the New Neolithic.

The worse scenario is complete extinction.

It's like the fascination with colonizing Mars. While we make this planet more and more uninhabitable, we imagine that we can make Mars more inhabitable. If we don't have the ability to maintain Earth's biosphere, how do we think we can create one on Mars? Arrogance + stupidity.

In the late 60s to early 70s there was a Zero Population Growth movement, but their voices were drowned out, no doubt by capitalists who are addicted to growth. Had the movement had success, things would probably be better now.

being a sci-fi buff, I've seen the future, and it is not us. The machine is unforgiving for human needs. Maybe we can come up with a new chapter in evolution. Much to agree with Don. In our hands is the pause that refreshes.

Me, I dig holes and soon will move leaves. My work.

…by the human species as a whole. They are systematically creating the mechanism for the rapid annihilation of themselves from the planet. Moreover, humans are consciously aware of the doomsday situation they are building for themselves as a sacrifice for the survival of the planet. The planet, itself, will heal, regain diversity, and flourish without humans. Eventually another sentient species will emerge.

If one were to see the algebraic population growth of humans plotted on a chart — from the time humans walked out of the Congo about 100,000 years ago to the present — one would see a very tall, upright "hockey-stick" formation, with the present moment at the top of the handle. In this universe, all hockey stick growth patterns result in colony collapse. Even if food and resource discovery grew at algebraic rates (which they most definitely do not), colony collapse would still occur. The tall stick shot to the top of the chart only 100 years ago, which represents a truly staggering imbalance in any ecosystem. The sharp turn happened suddenly during a 10 year period in the early 1900s when the entire world heard about germs and began washing their hands. In that same moment, the human lifespan nearly doubled.

Humans were fully aware of what had just happened. They had known for more than a century it would happen and they knew what it meant, but they refused to adjust or check themselves.

In the US in the year 1900, the average human lifespan was 47 years. It was also the average lifespan of the men who drafted the US Constitution 113 years earlier. At the time they were signing it, a young political economist named Thomas Robert Malthus was beginning a study that would result in a book that would leave an indelible mark upon the world. His book was titled An Essay on the Principle of Population, and it described how unchecked population growth occurs at an exponential rate, while the food supply could only be expected to grow at an arithmetical rate. The Founders were widely-read and undoubtedly aware of this prominent seminal work of the time. The mathematical inevitability of catastrophic overpopulation was a stark threat for the future, but they trusted that Americans would adjust and revise the Constitution so it would remain relevant to sweeping demographic transformations. This never happened, even after the industrial revolution Changed Everything.

Dr. Malthus told his readers an inconvenient truth that has been debated by world leaders ever since:

Across recorded human history, income was largely stagnant because technological advances and discoveries only resulted in more people, rather than improvements in the standard of living.

The people maintained a strict denial for any need of population control until well past the tipping point. The idea of sustainable living has caught on only recently.

Today, 230 years later, Dr. Malthus' book is still widely read, but the root cause of all environmental degradation — the massive overpopulation of humans on the planet — is still pointedly ignored and allowed to work its miserable end upon the species.

Thus, the only logical conclusion is that the species has collectively decided to eradicate itself for the sake of the planet. That's why I call it the "First Priority." It's the nature of the species.