Biggest Problem Facing Humanity

[magnemoe]

Yea, that's why the human species will never be able to cooperate and rise from their hunter-gatherer existence. Oh wait.

There is a reason that psychopaths are seen as weird and selfishness is frowned upon; humanity as a whole is actually pretty social and negotiable. Evolving in a tribal society tends to favor empathy.

True, humans are remarkable lite violent then compared to most mammals. Trying to beat up all the others and keep the females for you self would get you killed in sleep the last million years.

[3_bit]

The biggest problem is that we can't all have a nice, sit-down discussion about all of these things where we all bring our facts, and are equally represented, and get a legitimate solution that's cost-effective.

For example, did you know that humans and our creations output only a fraction of the CO2 in our atmosphere? It turns out Volcanos are the biggest producer.

[EuSouONumero345]

Actually, we can be "good", but what happens is that with the lack of resources you have to do something to survive, that's why people steal something, because they need, without capitalism we would have a good resource distribution and then all the people would have a "happy" life, without killing no one.

[drakesdoom]

Actually, we can be "good", but what happens is that with the lack of resources you have to do something to survive, that's why people steal something, because they need, without capitalism we would have a good resource distribution and then all the people would have a "happy" life, without killing no one.

Tell that to the dead from soviet Russia.

[dharak1]

Did you seriously suggest communism? Not a good system. You need levels to have any sort of society at all. If everyone has equal amounts of everything who is the top dog? The person more people like. Then the person at the social bottom attacks him or kills him. Then the whole system breaks as you pool resources to fight one side. Then some people are poor and others are rich. Then you have bartering for resources then you have common resources to barter. Then you start representing that with other things and then... Oh wait. And I haven't even covered the process of government. Overall sharing resources is a bad idea. Maybe I just think that way because I love being above other people .

[Seret]

Well, you've clearly got a bit of a thing about PV Lajoswinkler, so I doubt I'm ever going to change your mind. However, since you aren't the only person reading this I'd like to address a couple of your points, with some numbers and references so folks don't think I'm merely espousing the opposite bias.

The only reason it is economically viable in GB is because it's sponsored by the government.

Of course, the whole point of the FIT is to distort the market. It's the chicken and egg problem: how do you stimulate demand if high prices are keeping it suppressed? One thing you can do is introduce a subsidy that automatically reduces over time as prices are driven down by the subsidy. That's exactly how the FIT works. Subsidies for domestic retrofit installs have fallen from a high of 43.3p per kWh in 2011 to their current level of 14.9p. This will continue to go down as the price of a PV system falls. The current export rate is about 3.1p (it's based on the wholesale price) so it won't go lower than that. It should be noted that the FIT is levied against the power companies, who are the ones who should be paying the microgenerators for taking load off their system anyway.

PV will become viable economically without subsidies that exceed the avoided costs of the power companies, the trend is irrefutable IMO.

Don't fool yourself thinking you're saving the environment or the economy. You're doing exactly the opposite. Energy density of PV in London, with its moody weather is so pathetic it's laughable. London, clouds, rain, high latitude, come on.

Look, I have a PV array, so I'm well aware of exactly how much can be produced. As I said, my array matches the expected output for this location well. Here are last year and this year's predicted vs actual generation:

Predicted output for this location is about 0.8MWh per kWp, so in order for the array to have a net positive effect it needs to produce more energy during its expected life than was embodied in its production (EROEI). The vast amount of the array's embodied energy is in the cells, so taking their embodied energy of 4070MJ m^-2 and my array's size of 11.8m² you get 47,750MJ. During it's 25 year lifetime this array will produce 144,000MJ. That's an EROEI of about 3. So yes, the array will result in a substantial net reduction of energy use, and associated net reduction of environmental impact.

there are factories in China that make it possible, puking out incredible amounts of greenhouse gases and carcinogenic chemicals. There are whole regions so contaminated they represent dystopias from SF novels. But as long as it happens on the other side of the planet, it's ok...

Well, almost all arrays here in the UK use German of Japanese panels. There was some noise in the press about the advent of cheap Chinese panels, but it turns out demand for their panels has actually been very weak.

Their lack of care is the first thing what makes the panels cheaper

If that were true then producers in the other parts of the world wouldn't be able to compete. It turns out the worries about Chinese panels flooding the market were unfounded. The reason panels have come down in price is demand for a good quality product, which has been massive.

If GB was making its own PVs using environmentally friendly methods, their primary price would be huge

Not really. Energy, tooling, labour and materials costs aren't substantially lower in Japan and Germany, and they're massive players in the PV market. PV cells are just silicon semiconductors, and it's economical to produce those in lots of places. To suggest that China is the only place producing semiconductors is just silly.

When I first saw traffic lights in my town getting PVs, I was facepalming so hard. Someone made a huge money on that while they really could've leave them use the electrical grid.

They could use the grid, and indeed would have to. You're not going to fully power a traffic light with a wee panel on top. But if any part of the traffic light is DC then powering it directly with a small cheap panel makes sense. Providing it wasn't sited somewhere mental you'd get a net reduction in power use. Don't forget that the panel would avoid all transmission losses (about 7% in the UK) and conversion losses at the point of use (about another 3-5% for a SMPS) so the panel could even produce slightly less power than it's embodied energy over its life and you'd still come out ahead. However, as I've shown, assuming a sensibly sited system you're almost guaranteed to both recoup your costs and reduce CO₂e.

Anyway, talk to the people working in the energetics department, preferably someone without an agenda. I have with several of them and they all laughed when these things were mentioned. First they laugh, then they get serious and frustrated because they're sick of the "green" agenda that's gotten into the politics. Politicians are stupid and greedy. Make up a good story and offer money and you can do almost anything.

First of all, everybody has an agenda. Second of all: there's no conspiracy here. The physics and engineering involved aren't complicated, you don't need a great deal of expertise to understand it. Anyone with a high-school science education should be able to grasp the concepts. The data is readily available, do the sums for yourself, or use it to check the analysis others supply.

The main people making money here are manufacturers and installers of PV systems, which is fine. That's capitalism. It turns out the demand for their product is there, so the only issue is the use of subsidies during the early phase of deployment to speed the process. That's already falling away, and the market is maturing. The subsidies were necessary because governments wanted to push a carbon reduction policy faster than they knew the market would drive the prices down naturally. If you're a strict free-market libertarian that probably pisses you off, but I don't subscribe to that viewpoint.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Seret

[rkman]

good resource distribution and then all the people would have a "happy" life, without killing no one.

Tell that to the dead from soviet Russia.

Did you seriously suggest communism? Not a good system...If everyone has equal amounts of everything...

There was no good resource distribution in the USSR. Comparing the situation in the USSR with the definition of communism (as per the Communist Manifesto, not the definition given by ideological opponents of communism) leads to the conclusion that there was no communism in the USSR.

It was not egalitarian (instead there were rich and poor), nor stateless, nor democratic ("soviet" means elected governing council).

The USSR did not even call itself communist, USSR translates to "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics".

The only thing it had to do with communism is that it originally started out as an attempt to create a communist society, which is why the ruling political party did have the term "communist" in its name.

That attempt originated from the same social movement that is generally known as the "labor movement" which in western nations brought great improvements of living conditions for laborers. Obviously in the USSR it failed, and instead became a totalitarian dictatorship.

[magnemoe]

Did you seriously suggest communism? Not a good system. You need levels to have any sort of society at all. If everyone has equal amounts of everything who is the top dog? The person more people like. Then the person at the social bottom attacks him or kills him. Then the whole system breaks as you pool resources to fight one side. Then some people are poor and others are rich. Then you have bartering for resources then you have common resources to barter. Then you start representing that with other things and then... Oh wait. And I haven't even covered the process of government. Overall sharing resources is a bad idea. Maybe I just think that way because I love being above other people .

It works well enough in an small group and/ or simple systems (let us share the outcome of the hunt).

The larger the group is and how more complex the system becomes it works worse and worse.

Notice how soviet union was trailing longer and longer behind as technology became more advanced and the part counts increased, yes and the leadership and bureaucracy became more and more corrupt.

As the group size grows you loose the social pressure to share, more and more sub groups will either keep that they have or demand more than their share and put force behind the demand.

[grawl]

I'd go for education, as a lack of education is clearly the cause of all the mistakes humankind made and will make.

With education, you got a people that gets the long term policies.

With education, you got a people that can actually diverge from the "nature induced" behaviours (you know, "I've got the biggest [insert noun here]", all that).

With education, you got a people that knows why letting other people die in front of your eyes is not good for the general interest.

With education, you got a people that can work on better cures.

With education, you got a people that understands why it is not productive to fight each other.

With education, you got a people that does not feel the need to relieve on a greater power.

Education mates, education.

[musketeer]

My opinion would be lack of education and the way society runs as a whole. Stuff that consumers prioritise makes the most money, and is then generally mass produced to fit to a certain demographics (Music, films etc etc...). However, there are growing environmental and social issues which need to be addressed, but aren't because nobody cares.

I would agree that a better education would be the first step, but then to need to ensure that people aren't only intelligent, but think critically. Then the wider population will become more aware of the actual issues at hand, and something will be done about it. Space exploration is probably the most important thing behind education and healthcare. Once all that's in place, we should be well on our way to a Tier 1 Civilization

[TelluriumCrystal]

Overpopulation is, in my opinion, the biggest risk to humanity right now.

The solution? Lets go colonize other planets!

[mdatspace]

The biggest problem is that we can't all have a nice, sit-down discussion about all of these things where we all bring our facts, and are equally represented, and get a legitimate solution that's cost-effective.

For example, did you know that humans and our creations output only a fraction of the CO2 in our atmosphere? It turns out Volcanos are the biggest producer.

Volcanoes produce much less CO2 than humans.

But back on topic. I think the biggest problem facing humanity today is our inaction concerning long term issues. We don't try to solve a problem until it is right in front of us. Most act like they care for long-term issues, but they won't act. Nobody is willing to confront difficult issues before they bring the pain.

But I will say overpopulation.

Edited October 13, 2013 by mdatspace

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

I chose poverty/distribution of wealth, i am of the opinion that a more equal distribution of wealth would have a great impact on many of the other problems highlighted in this poll, especially overpopulation because once someone is comfortably well off the need to have a large family for protection disappears, i would expect a huge drop in the exponential element of population growth if redistribution were to occur.

If only ten people lived on an island that could comfortably support a hundred, but two of them took 90% of the resources for themselves the other eight would be hungry, (famine) angry (war) desperate for hope (religion) and overpopulation would still be blamed by those few living their paradise here on Earth, for me the Elephant in the room that affects all these other factors is wealth concentration in the hands of the few.

[K^2]

You guys do realize that if it wasn't for problems with education, we wouldn't have all the other problems, right?

[Mr Shifty]

You guys do realize that if it wasn't for problems with education, we wouldn't have all the other problems, right?

There's a Matt Yglesias article where he points out that if everyone had a PhD, you'd have PhD's sweeping floors and flipping burgers at McDonalds. Education ain't a panacea. It certainly helps to have a literate population (including math and technical literacy), but too much specialized education simply means that a bunch of people are going to have jobs that don't match their skills.

[K^2]

The problem with education isn't that people that sweep floors don't have a Ph.D. The problem is that most people with Ph.D. these days are only qualified to sweep floors.

[HeadHunter67]

Greed. IMO, every single one of the problems the world is facing comes down to someone, somewhere, wanting more than they need or deserve. Overpopulation, famine, disease, poverty, war, crime... can all be traced back to that one fatal flaw in the human condition.

[K^2]

Greed. IMO, every single one of the problems the world is facing comes down to someone, somewhere, wanting more than they need or deserve. Overpopulation, famine, disease, poverty, war, crime... can all be traced back to that one fatal flaw in the human condition.

I would probably argue that greed isn't even a bad thing, but even if I give you that things would be better without greed, you can't fix it. People want to have more. Now, the specific manifestation may differ. I mean, you may have greed for money or greed for freedom. Very different things. But you still have a problem of too many people wanting more of something that's finite. And even freedom is finite, because I might want to have freedom to set people on fire, and you probably want to have a freedom to opt out of being set on fire. Someone's freedom is going to have to give.

So we can't fix greed, but it doesn't have to be a problem. The problem is with irrational greed. The "Take what you want and screw the consequences," kind of greed. That's the problem. And we wouldn't have that problem if we had better political systems, legal systems, more cultured people, and people who understand consequences of action. In short, I point back to my point about education. We fix education, and everything else will domino into place.

[Seret]

You guys do realize that if it wasn't for problems with education, we wouldn't have all the other problems, right?

Explain. I don't follow this at all. Educated people are just as likely to be the cause of a problem as the solution IMO.

[Omicron314]

Explain. I don't follow this at all. Educated people are just as likely to be the cause of a problem as the solution IMO.

Not necessarily true. It's common knowledge that more educated people have fewer children than non-educated ones. In addition, if people were aware of the problems that are facing them instead of sticking their heads in the ground like the ostriches they are and batting aside the problems for others to deal with, many of the other problems (global warming) would go away.

The sad thing is the education system apparently exists to conform with everybody's dearly held beliefs. Thus we have government officials who flatly deny well-understood scientific concepts like climate change and evolution; lack of good science education leads to more denial of fact, more denial of fact means more stupid people, and, unfortunately, it is the stupid people who can shout the loudest.

[K^2]

Pretty much that. Good education increases the number of rationally thinking individuals. It also allows for generally informed public. And rational, informed public makes good decisions. Imagine that.

We have some fantastic mechanisms in place to deal with all of the man-kind's ills. We have democratic government to look after our needs, and a capitalist economy to look after our wants. We should be living in Utopia. Except that democratic government works when people know what they are voting for, and capitalist economy works when people know what they are paying for. They require rational, informed public. And if you look at an average citizen of even the first world countries, it's terrifying! If these are the people who vote for our politicians and these are the people who give money to corporations, no wonder everything's so screwed up.

Fortunately, both our political systems and our economic systems do not require everyone to be smart. They don't even require the majority to be smart. People with more income make bigger impact on economy and people who cast swing votes have higher impact on politics. Both of these have a positive correlation with education levels. But there is some critical mass of educated people which is required for the system to work, a critical mass which is entirely achievable given human intellectual potential, and critical mass we are sadly lacking due to poor education.

Our education systems are at best geared to look after average performance, and at worst, as is the case with the whole No Child Left Behind, are geared towards looking after the lowest common denominator. An education like that can maintain high testing averages, sure, but average people don't build the future. We still need a decent average education, and we should have programs to help children who fall behind, but not at the expense of educating the top 10%. Because these are the people who can actually solve the problems and not just contribute to the list.

[Seret]

Not necessarily true. It's common knowledge that more educated people have fewer children than non-educated ones.

The demographic trend isn't as simple as that. Everybody in deveopled nations has less children than those in developing ones, and that's not solely down to levels of education.

In addition, if people were aware of the problems that are facing them instead of sticking their heads in the ground like the ostriches they are and batting aside the problems for others to deal with, many of the other problems (global warming) would go away.

Higher education doesn't necessarily mean good judgement, or that political or ethical alignments don't count. Education is a good thing, but I think it's elitist to simply assume that well educated people are better at making every kind of choice in their lives. The higher you go in education, the more specialised you become. That means your knowledge becomes less and less applicable generally. That's a good trade off usually, because we can bank on specialised skills. But it does mean there are a lot of very well educated people who are a bit rubbish at everything outside their narrow discipline. You couldn't run the world (or even a company) with these people, many of the skills that are vital for making the world go round aren't strictly knowledge-based.

And let's not forget the value of knowledge's crucial counterpart: wisdom. Knowledge is a blunt tool without wisdom (and vice versa). You don't get taught wisdom in school.

[Person012345]

What do you guys think is the single biggest problem facing humanity at the moment?

Itself.

messagenottooshort

[Person012345]

Oh, and I agree that the solution is education. The smarter everyone is, the better things will get. Except people generally aren't smart enough to realise this.

[Mr Shifty]

Our education systems are at best geared to look after average performance, and at worst, as is the case with the whole No Child Left Behind, are geared towards looking after the lowest common denominator. An education like that can maintain high testing averages, sure, but average people don't build the future. We still need a decent average education, and we should have programs to help children who fall behind, but not at the expense of educating the top 10%. Because these are the people who can actually solve the problems and not just contribute to the list.

1) It's hard to quantify academic potential in kindergartners. Poverty has a marked negative effect on academic outcomes over against test score or IQ or whatever lame measure of potential for societal success you could come up with. Focusing on the top 10% means that you're throwing money at the folks who already have it; the kids who've been well fed, lived in safe, stable homes, and had private tutors since they were in diapers. No G/T program ever did anything for me; and I was in a bunch of them. What did help was a state program to let kids enroll at the community college for the final two years of secondary school. I spent my junior and senior years of high school taking college classes in physics, calculus, literature, economics, computer programming, political science, etc. I never stepped foot in my high school for those two years. This program cost the district almost nothing. Smart kids don't need money and resources thrown at them; they need opportunities opened, and they'll be able to find their own ways.

2) If you focus on the top 10%, you're going to worsen inequality. Chris Hayes argued pretty persuasively in his book Twilight of the Elites, that inequality causes a whole host of dysfunction in our political and economic systems, mostly by making those systems unresponsive to the needs and wants of most people. The whole idea behind capitalism is that growth and prosperity are shared enterprises. You can't impoverish the masses and continue to have a prospering society.

I agree with you that a broad based education project is vital for a functioning culture, but I'm less convinced that we know how to do that. Education doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's got to interact with a host of political, economic, and technological forces which occasionally (often?) serve to swamp its effects, e.g. there's a whole current cohort of college graduates who aren't getting the jobs they've trained for (or any job in many cases) because of economic distress that's keeping unemployment high and boomers from retiring.