How to maximize humanity’s happiness.

Tags

How to achieve happiness, human values, humanities survival, What is humanity

This is a post about ultimate human values wherein there will be an effort to state the underlying assumptions and the reasons for the assumptions.

1. Human beings are the most valued of all things. There is no particular justification for this belief other than I am a human and live within a society of humans. If I were a speaking worm it would be equally sensible of me to say that worms are the highest valued of all things.
2. Because I value humans I want to maximize their lives and their well being. This consists of life, and the ability to live that life in a way that permits their free access to personal responses to their environmental presentations.
3. Human life can be measured by total numbers of individuals and by the time which these individuals exist. Thus, simply multiplying the number of humans times the total number of minutes which they live gives a measure of the sum of humanity.
4. Humanity had a beginning, is at its middle and will have an end. I assume that humanity is at the mid-point of its existence because if you picked an individual from any species that ever lived it will almost always be living in a middle condition of its species.
5. Humanity is defined as beginning 12,000 years ago. This is not the beginning of the species but it is the beginning of large scale organizations which we have developed into civilizations. It is also the beginning of agriculture and the organized control of natural processes. It is also the end of the ice age and the beginning of what is known as the Holocene.
6. Humanity is defined as ending 12,000 years in the future. This is obviously an arbitrary number simply based on the assumption that humanity is at its civilized midpoint. It gives us a handle on defining the magnitude of the problems facing us and thus implies the ways and means for coping with the problems which will inevitably arise. A billion happy people living for 12,000 years ought to be able to fully explore that ecological niche.
7. Human beings prefer being happy to being miserable. This seems obvious but one may easily observe that where population exceeds the carrying capacity of its environment the individuals’ lives are nasty, brutish and short. These times and places are also filled with very high birth rates with most individuals dying while they are still quite young.
8. Living to the maximum years of one’s biological potential implies living a good life. Populations which have lower fertility tend to live longer and on into old age. They are happier, healthier, wiser and wealthier most of that time because to achieve these things they must be living in a satisfactory environment. A long life defines a good life.

When looking at humanity with the very long 12,000 year perspective it becomes obvious to demographers that fertility must be very near replacement value of two children per woman and that the rate of population expansion of the last 400 years would if continued for 12,000 more years consume every atom in the universe. Humanity, within the potential lifetimes of children now living, will go through a massive realignment of attitude relative to the birth of new children. Because of the wild swings of what will happen and what people will desire after these happenings it becomes impossible to predict anything other than to say it will be very different than what has gone on during the living memory of everyone now inhabiting planet Earth. To attempt to forsee the possibilities and guess the probabilities may be helpful in that it permits one be prepared for the events. It is impossible to know the precise events or when they will happen but it is possible to make general preparations. Some obvious generalizations are, “Don’t do stupid things.” “Keep yourself and your loved ones as healthy as possible.”

If one came back to Earth 10,000 years in the future and found 6.8 billion people you could say that on average the women had two children each. If there were 1,000 times as many people, at that time, it would be 6.8 trillion (standing shoulder to shoulder) but it would require a birth rate of only 1/7th of one percent greater than the replacement rate to achieve. See: How Many People Can the Earth Support? by Joel E. Cohen p. 154. The total birth rate to reach this phenomenal number would be absolutely imperceptibly different from simple replacement rates but because of compounding interest over this long period of time the world population would become a totally incomprehensible huge mass. What this means is that if we are thinking about humanity in this longer time base, that means our thinking must recognize that on average each woman has two children which reach reproductive maturity. At present there are absolutely no controls on world fertility even though there are some local laws because people can move from one area to another and avoid the restrictions.”The Earth’s human population must ultimately approach a long-term average growth rate of zero. This is a simple mathematical fact, not subject to the whims of wars or elections or with or chance. It is the one irrefutable proposition of demographic theory.” p. 154

If we want to have a stable world over a 12,000 year period it will be necessary for people to limit themselves to two children. This can be done the easy way through human cooperation (effective regulation) or the hard way through Natural Processes (War, Famine, Disease, Etc.). Humanity has chosen the hard way so far and doesn’t seem likely to give it up. We could keep hopping along with the same old hopes for another 12,000 years except for our growing stockpile of super weapons which will probably bring about a boom and bust situation on a very grand scale.

It would seem logical that people would be willing to give up some of their poverty, their famines, their wars and their excess children for an average of ninety years of happy, healthy, wise and wealthy life. It just doesn’t seem likely.

How ethical behavior can help us survive Doomsday.

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Doomsday, ethics, humanities survival, Legal Selection, Natural Selection, Population Law, survival, Vital Law

The function of ethical behavior is to maximize the human species survival, and this quality has been bred into our species on an intellectually observable level ever since the first human females started selecting males based on those females’ ability to discuss the ethical behavior of males with their friends. The goal of the Lifehaven Project is rather similar to those females’ goal as it also aims to maximize the quality of the human species, but it adds the additional factor of the species’s long term survival, and not just the next reproductive cycle’s needs such as would have concerned those choosy women. The product of both of these types of choices is a healthy human species.

In those ancient times—and in fact up until 1945 with the explosion of the first atomic bomb—their method of defining ethical behavior worked quite, well but now there must be the additional quality in humans of having sufficient foresight to prevent annihilation of our species. The current mental state of the world will neither permit nor support the new type of vital laws which are necessary to create a stable world where the human population resides in balance with the rest of the world. But in the future these few vital laws which are to be proposed might be acceptable.

The maximum number of humans which can live in balance with nature may be as few as ten million, perhaps even fewer or perhaps more, but certainly a tiny fraction of the current population of 6.7 billion. Only after experience with a number substantially less than the maximum sustainable number for some extended period of time, say one hundred years, will it be possible to measure if humanity is in balance. The proxy measure for the Earth’s health at present, and probably a good one if there is to be a single measure, is the CO2 concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere. Only after the CO2 level has returned to the pre-industrial level of 1825 can the human population of the Earth be permitted to be raised again. If all anthropogenic CO2 were to immediately stop being put into the atmosphere it would probably be about two hundred years before that 1825 figure would be approached, and that figure would be approached that quickly only if there was a healthy biosphere, and not one severely degraded by an atomic war. When that war happens, as it must if we continue on our current path, the time for CO2 recovery will probably be much longer because there would be fewer species to do the necessary conversions, filtration and sequestration processes necessary for recovery. Generally speaking, complex species environments maintain a higher conversion rate for incoming solar radiation, and so a depleted gene pool following an atomic war would probably not be as efficient at cleaning up the environment. This recovery might be simulated by computers, but probably not very accurately because there are just too many confounding factors, and some seemingly minor one might suddenly well up and totally change everything.

The problem is one of setting up the laws for this after Doomsday new way of life. It has as its goal, Vital Law #1—the forming of a sustainable dynamic balance of humans with the Earth’s environment by population control, and thus the prevention of population explosions. What needs to be done is to replace some of Nature’s Laws with Human Laws. In a way this is abhorrent, and probably impossible. At present people would rather live with recurrent Doomsdays, and the near annihilation of all humanity, and all other life forms on Earth than to voluntarily limit their breeding to an average of two children per woman. That is challenging enough, but there must be a second law, and that is to replace nature’s natural destruction of unfit living beings. This isn’t a new concept, and it has been practiced by other cultures. In the new “de-Doomed” world where people are being controlled on their reproduction, and provided with excellent health care these measures are necessary to prevent genetic degradation. Nature prevents genetic degradation by taking away the less fit in a multitude of horrible ways, and no one seems to mind very much, but when human consciousness, and will are involved people rebel—as perhaps they should.

Therefore, Vital Law #2—these vital life decisions are to be removed from human consideration, and put into a generally agreed upon form of legal decision. This new Vital Law replaces nature’s law of Natural Selection. It might be more difficult to define than some exact number of human beings permitted to be born in a particular year as in Vital Law #1 because nature has a vast number of ways by which it eliminates the unfit, but there must be determined some legal method of limiting humans from entering the gene pool when they fall below some level of genetic vitality. This is intended to replace what nature already does constantly on a routine basis. This is a difficult concept for the currently free breeding humans to consider, but the idea here is to create human vitality, and vigor not just for some particular person, but for all humanity for the next hundred thousand years. In that time period obviously any given person will have come, and gone but if they insert some harmful gene into the public gene pool, and there is no law for removing it, that flaw will proliferate throughout the entire human species. The Law of Natural Selection would have prevented that by eliminating it early on but since humans are now capable of overriding that Natural Law there must be a new Human Law put in its place. If that can not be done then there will be an inevitable degradation and death of the entire human species in the not distant future. Obviously at present that kind of vital law can not be enacted, but after Doomsday when the population has been reduced to a very small number perhaps it could be agreed upon to limit fertility to two children per person, and to eliminate by some agreed upon process, possibly sterilization or isolation, those whom nature would have eliminated anyway if left to fulfill its usual function. People at present do many things which even a short time ago would have been considered impossible so perhaps limiting births to two per person, and isolating the unfit from the common gene pool isn’t impossible.

In conclusion, what is necessary for humanity to survive in the long run is an ethical system which includes taking over some of the functions that are ordinarily taken care of by natural processes.

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Humanity’s survival with a population of 1 million people.

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caves, human survival, humanities survival, life-boats, life-havens

Is there anything we could do now to improve the chances for a decent human society to emerge after a projected human population collapse to about one million people ?

The survival scenarios in this blog have been based on the Probaway Disaster Scale, and this level of disaster would be a DISS~11. It is assumed that there would be a major war for this level of disaster to have been visited upon humanity, and so it is likely that a substantial percentage of the currently existing nuclear weapons would have been exploded. Furthermore, add to that catastrophe that most, if not all, of the nuclear power plants would have been targeted, and destroyed, and their poisonous materials scattered about. So the entire surface of the Earth would have a nasty radioactive background radiation to contend with for a very long time.

To start with it is hoped that preparations for DISS~12 – 15 have been fully implemented, and that the ultimate demise of our species isn’t in question. Each of these preparations is very inexpensive compared to the infinite value they would have in the long run for humanity. In this case the long run is only a hundred years or so. To prepare a DISS~14 life-haven might cost as little as a million dollars and it should be done at this instant, and maintained in readiness. This is little more than setting aside in some super protected place the absolute minimum essentials to sustain life of ten or fewer people for about one hundred years.

{ Time to go hang out for a while and brood about this. }

Humanity’s survival with a population of 10,000 people.

Tags

caves, human survival, humanities survival, life-boats, life-havens

The question — After a major thermonuclear war is there a possibility that a life-haven of 10,000 people could reestablish a livable and desirable worldwide community? If you believe that there is no possibility of anyone surviving a war which uses the currently existing weapons then there is no need to read further. I do hope that there is the possibility of reconstituting humanity. It can be done in two separate ways. One is dumb luck in which some people are just lucky enough to be somewhere where there is food supplies for many years already stored, and where there is a livable space. The second one, much like the first, is where some people have prepared food supplies for many years located where there is a livable space. This second option requires some expensive preparations, but most of all it requires something which humans are bereft of—forethought.

For example: What were Szilard, Einstein, Oppenheimer, and a long string of Nobel Laureates thinking about when they created these humanity exterminating weapons??? Was it that the world — at least their fellow countrymen for a short time in the future — would love them for being so very clever— or what? Surely these very smart people, if they had a tiny bit of foresight would have realized that they would be condemned forevermore after these things were actually used. Thus, if the smartest of people on earth lack enough forethought to foresee what their monstrous creations would bring about, then it is obvious that as a species humans are bereft of forethought.

What I am going to suggest is that we humans spend one thousandth, perhaps a millionth, as much on trying to save the human species as we have spent this last century in trying to destroy it. Is that too much? All of that vast expenditure of money was only to enforce “our” various local groups’ political will on some other groups, and generally not to destroy all other humans absolutely. But, this proposal for a life-haven is not to save any particular group but to save humanity itself. If it isn’t done before the nuclear war explodes, then only the first option above comes into play—dumb luck.

This idea of a life-haven seems like a good idea, but it probably can’t be financed by a government because that would require its being supported by the public. In order for the public to finance it they must be convinced that it is necessary, but before they can be convinced they must know the facts, and be aware of the ramifications. But, and here is the problem, if the smartest people in the world, to whom all of this information was presented, could not foresee the results of their actions, how can we expect the taxpayers to see them and to pay for it? Remember, half of all humans are below average in intelligence and most are not as well educated or informed as these super intelligent prize-winning heroes.

Rather than wail on from the point of view of the billions of people who will never live or who will live lives contaminated by these heroes’ work it seems more productive to try, and to propose some remedies. These ideas will no doubt be ridiculed because they are intended to help save not just some political ideal, but humanity itself.

What is needed is about ten life-havens, of about one thousand persons each, which are located in places remote from one another for redundancy. In the event of a world catastrophe each would be capable of reconstituting humanity without any contact with the others. Each one would be totally underground, and capable of being absolutely self sustaining for ten years without any contact with the surface.

What is needed to accomplish this modest proposal?

1. Ten thousand healthy volunteers per year to people the havens. These would be elected from ten thousand randomly selected population groups, each group being about ten million people. They should be married couples, with a child, to create as stable an environment in the life-haven as possible. These people would be rotated out at the end of their year, and replaced by another family which would be in for one year. Since there are about three hundred families there would be one new rotation approximately every day, so there would be as little disruption of activities as possible. When there is a good reason for a family to return to their homeland, such as severe sickness or other personal problem, then the whole family would be rotated out as a unit, and a new one brought in.

2. Because this is intended to be a haven for humanity there needs to be a trusted mix of people from all polities with access to the functioning of the cave. There must be proof positive that there is no military advantage to anyone who has any influence on the haven. This is for humanity’s survival, and not for any particular group’s advantage. Therefore, all people within the cave must have ready access to every detail of its operation, even the children. They may not manipulate whatever they find, since some of it may be technical, but they must be capable of exposing whatever they do find to the group at large for inspection, and public explanation.

3. The haven must be large and comfortable for all of its occupants, and because food must be created there needs to be large rooms with well illuminated areas for the crops to be grown, and for some animals to be kept. Much of this farm work could be done by hand or possibly electrically powered farm machinery could be specially developed. The occupants for the first several years might be made up of the construction specialists who transitioned over from the purely surface people working on the original surface driven construction work.

4. There must be a source of power to make this function totally independently underground, and that would probably have to be a nuclear reactor. Fortunately a lot of work has already been done on exactly the kind of reactor that would be needed. Ones that are self contained, and are very reliable are in constant use in submarines. There now exists fifty years of experience with these reactors so their functioning shouldn’t be a problem. Whatever secrecy that surrounds these reactors could probably be maintained because the access to them would be so very limited. This would certainly be the most peaceful thing that nuclear energy was ever used for so there shouldn’t be too much trouble in obtaining the necessary reactors. Perhaps they are already available in the form of retired submarine models.

5. Who would fund these life-havens, and how much would one cost, and how much to maintain? After they are in operation for ten years the out of pocket cost to the general public would be very small indeed—only the cost of the reactors’ power replacement. Also, after a year or so it might prove possible for them to be economically productive by offering safe storage of various things, computer records, and backups for example, and of course a gene, and seed bank. These are things for which it would be better suited than a surface structure. It is hard for me to estimate how much these things would cost as there are many variables, but a million dollars per person should be enough so it would cost about a billion dollars to build and populate one of these life-havens for the first year. The costs would drop rapidly after a few years, and might even turn to a profit. The second and third constructions would cost half as much, and the tenth one might only cost a hundred thousand dollars or less per person. Who would pay? Probably the first option would be to find people who are presently floating money on projects such as hotels in space because this is rather like that, only different in that it is in inner space rather than outer space.