The `real` issues

[Kondoru]

What are they?

Every time I hear or read a news story it seems to be irrelevant.

what is important?

 

[stu neville]

Kinda hard to answer, that one. Especially about now, on Boxing Day, after a wee dram or two.

I'm sure various of the usual Conspiracy inhabitants will be happy to fill you in though, complete with links, handouts and PowerPoint presentations .

 

[Scunnerlugzz]

The continued overpolulation of Earth by mankind and a complete lack of will to address the problem?

Address this problem and you solve all the others...well most of them.

 

[Zilch5]

The Mainstream Media won't touch the Real Issues.

I'll let you know more once the black helicopters disappear from my area... ""

 

[lupinwick]

Powerpoint? The devils tool (pah!).

Anyway, is this about the media seemingly not reporting things? The news reporting of late does seem to focus on minor stories rather than some of the bigger issues - which I'd expect to be reported.

 

[Analogue Boy]

Don't get me started on the news.
I've made a couple of posts here on the comedic editoralism of the BBC news at Ten such as featuring the use of footage from Nosferatu to illustrate the 'horror' of the Northern Rock crisis.
I've also bemoaned the fact that the Breakfast news seems to be little more than ads for programmes coming up later on the channel.

If there is a high point to the Beeb's output this year, for me it's probably Paxman's question to one of the heads promoting BBC3 at the expense of this pisspoor news coverage when he said something along the lines of 'So you think Me and my Manboobs is a better programme than Newsnight?'

 

[stu neville]

...I've also bemoaned the fact that the Breakfast news seems to be little more than ads for programmes coming up later on the channel.

Well, in the hour of it that I watched this morning it concentrated about 30% of the time on advice for people going to the sales, seemed to do the weather about every ten minutes, and gave us about three news items, one of which was very brief. However, I've said it before, it's still better than GMTV, which is basically an animate version of Hello! magazine.

If there is a high point to the Beeb's output this year, for me it's probably Paxman's question to one of the heads promoting BBC3 at the expense of this pisspoor news coverage when he said something along the lines of 'So you think Me and my Manboobs is a better programme than Newsnight?'

Perhaps one day they'll do a BBC news staff shift about, and put Paxo and John Humphries on the Breakfast sofa. That I'd pay (more than I already do) to watch .

 

[Analogue Boy]

That is a dangerous meddling with the TV science laws of sexual chemistry....it's madness I say, madness!

 

[Pete Younger]

What pisses me off is the fact that news 24 show the same crap as BBC1 in the mornings, the only difference being the little person in the corner gesticulating.

 

[wembley8]

Every time I hear or read a news story it seems to be irrelevant.

Irrelevant to who? It sounds like you're just looking at the wrong media. If you're fascinated by Britney's latest antics and Man U, get a tabloid. If you want to know about how the emerging debt crists impacts sub-Saharan Africa, get the Economist. If you want to know the science behind global warming and how to stop it, get New Scientist.

And if you want the really good stuff, you need Fortean Times (...though I have to say that Crowley geezer is a complete waste of space IMHO).

 

[Anonymous]

I would say the real issues are;

Mankind's stubborn reliance on finite (food, energy, raw materials) resources.

It leads to a halt in the progress of mankind, not just on a technological front, but also in that because we are all squabbling over the dregs of finite resources we cannot trust each other, and thus there is no world peace.

If everybody had everything they wanted and it never ran out, then there would be no fighting and no war.

World peace and no more need to work for a living - I'll drink to that!

:_pished:

 

[TinFinger]

myself

the insistance on not using water as a fuel

the forthcoming clash of america with europe,if europe do unite as one nation there will inevitably be either a civil or global war.

the over population of the planet

the likely eruption of yellowstone park

the in ballance in the middle east which seems to never end

the neverending strife in africa and the rest of the worlds atempts to ignore/fuel it

 

[eburacum]

the insistance on not using water as a fuel

You do realise it can't be used as an energy source, don't you? That is a crucial difference between using water or hydrogen as a fuel- it requires more energy input than you get out of it.

the forthcoming clash of america with europe,if europe do unite as one nation there will inevitably be either a civil or global war.

Intriguing idea.

the over population of the planet

The birth rate in wealthy countries is decreasing rapidly. This suggests a solution - make the poorer countries richer.

the likely eruption of yellowstone park

Could happen any time in the next few million years- do you feel lucky?

the inbalance in the middle east which seems to never end

the neverending strife in africa and the rest of the worlds atempts to ignore/fuel it

Both good points.

 

[Anonymous]

Water might be used as a fuel, with little energy input.

Here is a story commenting on a batch of stories re an accidental discovery that radio frequencies might release hydrogen from water;

http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/?p=4145

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Water might be used as a fuel, with little energy input.

Here is a story commenting on a batch of stories re an accidental discovery that radio frequencies might release hydrogen from water;

http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/?p=4145

But, how much energy do you have to use before the radio waves are powerful enough to split water into its constituent parts, hydrogen and oxygen?

Conservation of Energy strongly suggests that you'd still have to put more energy into the water than you would get back out in the form of hydrogen and oxygen.

 

[feen5]

You don't have to spilt water to use it as a fuel, there is generating electricity from wave power. We have the whole of the Atlantic Ocean on our doorstep to use.

 

[wembley8]

We have the whole of the Atlantic Ocean on our doorstep

And that's another thing...!

 

[eburacum]

Good point. Energy can also be extracted from tides, from hydroelectric dams, and from ocean thermal energy conversion (my favourite). Ocean Thermal energy alone could power the world several tmes over.

But you can't get more energy out of water by splitting it (by any method, including radio waves) than you put into it during the splitting process.

 

[Anonymous]

I didn't know anything had to be split by the radio waves, or that a lot of energy was required to generate radio waves (and the article referred to frequency, not strength).

I got the impression that the relevant parts were separated not by splitting atoms or by smashing bonds but by some more less violent means.

I have read other forum posts on other forums which suggest that tidal power involves dumping a lot of mechanisms all over the coastline which some people might not like - and that hydroelectric dams tend to require dams which tend to require flooding places people would rather were not flooded (plenty of examples of those and their relevant protests).

I will find out more about Ocean Thermal energy though.

 

[Anonymous]

Done.

It would appear that Ocean Thermal energy conversion relies on the Stirling Engine model, whereby a gas is moved between a place which is hot and a place which is cold and the movement of the gas used to create work (turn the turbine or move the pistons that move the - whatever).

Trouble is that their heat source in this case is not necessarily hot, unless they boost the heat of the surface water by storing it in a metal cyllinder, paint it black and allow the sun to heat it up.

Then there is the problem of efficiency - how many such cyllinders will be used and how much energy do you use (and from where) to pump the water from one mile beneath the sea/ocean?

Getting back on thread though - I do not think that there is a conspiracy that would make suppression of this very inefficient technology a real issue.

 

[eburacum]

I got the impression that the relevant parts were separated not by splitting atoms or by smashing bonds but by some more less violent means.

The violence of the process is not the issue. If you put enough energy into the system to separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen you will only get that same amount of energy back minus any inefficiencies.

It's like MC Hawking said-
You can't win, you can't break even, you can't leave the game.

 

[Kondoru]

Im sorry I wasnt following this thread; dont seem to be getting any alerts

splitting water by electolys is a good way to get gas for welders though.

and yes, one of the real issues is overpopulation....why is it being virtualy ignored even today?

 

[wembley8]

Im sorry I wasnt following this thread; dont seem to be getting any alerts

splitting water by electolys is a good way to get gas for welders though.

and yes, one of the real issues is overpopulation....why is it being virtualy ignored even today?

because it's no longer seen as being the terrible danger it once was. Years ago, it was all Malthusian and they were talking about a maximum population of umteen billion. Now birth rates have fallen off and the pattern is fairly clear - as countries get wealthier, and in particular when women start to get education, birth rates drop and population stabilises.

World population might hit 9 billion in 2050, but that's still easily sustainable (if we want to).

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

The problem, you might say, isn't the number of people: it's how we share stuff out.

 

[Anonymous]

I can see why money means better education means women want a career and do not want babies because they want a different life so population ages and then declines.

Won't happen whilst most countries are not in this position, or whilst the countries which have a population of 1 billion+ each are not in this position.

I also think that sharing stuff is an issue, so I agree with that - I would add though that another issue is where we get the stuff and how much there is left to make other stuff or just to feed us.

 

[Kondoru]

Yup, thats another important one, -Resources.

Many of the women I know who got an education now have two and three children...they can afford them, and now are juggling children and a career.

not an improvement methinks.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Yup, thats another important one, -Resources.

Many of the women I know who got an education now have two and three children...they can afford them, and now are juggling children and a career.

not an improvement methinks.

Better than the times, which a lot of people round the World still live in, where folks used to have upwards of six kids, keeping five for spare, just in case something nasty happened to the others.

Let's face it, big families were the norm, in the West, well into the first twenty years of the last century. Because, Society still hadn't recovered from the high infant mortality rate of the Victorian era.

 

[Anonymous]

I didn't think of it like that, but war and disease could theoretically kill off one's offspring - happens in nature all the time.

Survival of the fittest, tough old world out there.

I got told once that these women in developing or poor countries had lots of babies because they wanted lots of babies to grow up and get lots of jobs to make them better off.

Kind of defeats the point of having lots of babies if you ask me.

I would go with the disease and war theory instead.

There are other factors (particularly in poor countries or poor rural parts of developing countries) that may come into play here, but instinct is a powerful thing.

 

[ted_bloody_maul]

Interesting article re education and birthrate, albeit it at a higher level than the kind of education we might be discussing here:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/student ... 00,00.html

I'm not sure it's so much the education that's the issue as the attitude which dictates the provision of that education. During the Taliban years girls weren't allowed to attend school, for example, and there was little female empowerment. Had they simply offered education without any altering their stance elsewhere then, on its own, it would have acheived little. Of course, the decision of whether or not to provide education or what kind of education to provide for women is not always a political one but in such societies there are most likely a lack of opportunities post-education in any case (hence the poorer standard of education that will be available).

 

[ted_bloody_maul]

I didn't think of it like that, but war and disease could theoretically kill off one's offspring - happens in nature all the time.

Survival of the fittest, tough old world out there.

I got told once that these women in developing or poor countries had lots of babies because they wanted lots of babies to grow up and get lots of jobs to make them better off.

Kind of defeats the point of having lots of babies if you ask me.

I would go with the disease and war theory instead.

There are other factors (particularly in poor countries or poor rural parts of developing countries) that may come into play here, but instinct is a powerful thing.

It would be interesting to see how the birthrate in a country would be affected were it the man who went through 9 months of carrying the child, the pain of childbirth, the effect it had on the body afterwards and the restricted freedom that rearing children - particularly in a less technologically developed society - entailed. Unfortunately, the decision ultimately may not lie with the woman and even where it does they may be coerced by what 'society', usually shaped and dominated by men, expects of them.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with both your posts Ted.

However, how does all this help to explain 1 billion people in China, 1 billion in India and 1 billion in Africa?

Different reasons in each country/continent of course.