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Are there really a lot of fish in the sea?


Randomguy

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I am watching some documentary about filming nature's greatest events, and it is pretty interesting what these guys do.  In the one I just watched, every animal on the planet was eating herring and compressed the thousands of them into a tiny area so's to pen them and pick them off one at a time.  So many fish look like they earn their living this way, as do the seabirds, and I am trying to do the math in my head as to how many bait fish there have to be to support this many creatures and still be able to repopulate, as every single fish in these bait balls get eaten, all of them.  Pretty unreal.

Anyway, as they were filming, out of nowhere comes a humpback whale and effectively eats the whole ball himself.  I start thinking that my estimates have to be off a good bit, as just one whale looks like it could off 20 or 30 whole schools of fish by its lonesome every day.

I am having trouble grasping the sheer volume of dead-smelling fishiness that is out there right now.

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I always wondered the same thin' aboot petroleum (I have been talking to myself in a Ricky Ricardo voice sometimes lately :D ).  It is just mind boggling to me with all the cars and trucks on the road and planes in the sky that we haven;t run oot of the shit yet.  And it also makes me wonder why the flock we have the civilization we do - to burn all the stuff up in abandon to sit in traffic and go to work everyday and mess up the planet while squandering a precious resource?  There HAS to be a better way.  Communism or socialism didn;t work oot very well, but capitalism is sort of porking us too.  I guess to some degree we need at least the trucks to distribute necessary goods like building materials and food, but once we have enough buildings all we need is energy for heat and cooling and entertainment and food and medical care.  Too bad that telecommuting never really went mainstream even with the Internet to facilitate it.  Basically, we suck!

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15 minutes ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

I always wondered the same thin' aboot petroleum (I have been talking to myself in a Ricky Ricardo voice sometimes lately :D ).  It is just mind boggling to me with all the cars and trucks on the road and planes in the sky that we haven;t run oot of the shit yet.  And it also makes me wonder why the flock we have the civilization we do - to burn all the stuff up in abandon to sit in traffic and go to work everyday and mess up the planet while squandering a precious resource?  There HAS to be a better way.  Communism or socialism didn;t work oot very well, but capitalism is sort of porking us too.  I guess to some degree we need at least the trucks to distribute necessary goods like building materials and food, but once we have enough buildings all we need is energy for heat and cooling and entertainment and food and medical care.  Too bad that telecommuting never really went mainstream even with the Internet to facilitate it.  Basically, we suck!

Silly Ralph, fish don't eat schools of petroleum!

I get your point, though.  Any idiot who says any one system "is the best for all situations" is a pretty fucking moronic simpleton, and humans tend to screw other humans as a matter of course.  We grew up hearing that "world reserves of petroleum will be running low in 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, 2030 whenever time period someone thinks you can be scared of running out the most.  

You know what?  I don't care if we run out of petroleum gradually.  If it is gradual, then something will take its place and if not, then we will do more walking, cycling, and horse riding.  If it gets shut off all at once, some new government asshole or other will attack a country that has oil under some obvious pretense, and fuck that country because that is what our government historically does when resources are scarce - they find a way to take from someone that can't fight back.

The lack of telecommuting acceptance is due to the number of control freaks in charge out there who think "If I can't see you working, you are not working".  I hate those people.  Obviously, you can't telecommute to the farm or factory, but if costs continue to rise, micro offices or companies like WeWork or the like will have us working at least a little closer to home eventually.

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5 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Silly Ralph, fish don't eat schools of petroleum!

I get your point, though.  Any idiot who says any one system "is the best for all situations" is a pretty fucking moronic simpleton, and humans tend to screw other humans as a matter of course.  We grew up hearing that "world reserves of petroleum will be running low in 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, 2030 whenever time period someone thinks you can be scared of running out the most.  

You know what?  I don't care if we run out of petroleum gradually.  If it is gradual, then something will take its place and if not, then we will do more walking, cycling, and horse riding.  If it gets shut off all at once, some new government asshole or other will attack a country that has oil under some obvious pretense, and fuck that country because that is what our government historically does when resources are scarce - they find a way to take from someone that can't fight back.

The lack of telecommuting acceptance is due to the number of control freaks in charge out there who think "If I can't see you working, you are not working".  I hate those people.  Obviously, you can't telecommute to the farm or factory, but if costs continue to rise, micro offices or companies like WeWork or the like will have us working at least a little closer to home eventually.

It's snot just the running oot of petroleum that irks me, it is the silliness of all this )(*&^% driving and its attendant environmental degradation.  I was hoping we might emulate China with its millions of bikers, but that is long gone!  Instead they emulated us. :(

 

 

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1 minute ago, Randomguy said:

I KNEW it was the Chinese all along!  The US and A could simply NEVER be a contributing source of any problem, ever!

We started it, but the Chinese are definitely becoming the world wide leaders of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas production.  Just as in everything else, China takes what we do and perfects it!  

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53 minutes ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

It's snot just the running oot of petroleum that irks me, it is the silliness of all this )(*&^% driving and its attendant environmental degradation.  I was hoping we might emulate China with its millions of bikers, but that is long gone!  Instead they emulated us. :(

 

 

Actually, that is the only thing that bothers me about using all the gas or petroleum you want is the pollution.  Biking would help.

At least more and more people are doing the biking thing as a method of transportation (it is a small number, though).  It helps if the trips are shorter, and if helmet nazi's would let people ride in peace without being all preachy like  Prius drivers and some vegans before they realize the preachiness makes things worse, not better.  Yeah, yeah, I know some melons will be smashed in the process of not wearing a helmet for short hops, but if you want the hipster douchebag assholes to ride to the restaurant and then concert and then bar instead of drive, then lay off.  Make it fun and cool and unpressured and people are more prone to do it.   I always wear a helmet, btw.

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9 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Actually, that is the only thing that bothers me about using all the gas or petroleum you want is the pollution.  Biking would help.

At least more and more people are doing the biking thing as a method of transportation (it is a small number, though).  It helps if the trips are shorter, and if helmet nazi's would let people ride in peace without being all preachy like  Prius drivers and some vegans before they realize the preachiness makes things worse, not better.  Yeah, yeah, I know some melons will be smashed in the process of not wearing a helmet for short hops, but if you want the hipster douchebag assholes to ride to the restaurant and then concert and then bar instead of drive, then lay off.  Make it fun and cool and unpressured and people are more prone to do it.   I always wear a helmet, btw.

The pollution and climate change are definitely the worst part, but it is also wasteful - petroleum is probably better used for plastics, although that is also a problem!  Anyhoo, yes, biking would help a lot.  The biggest rub against wide adoption is laziness and weather and of course distance, as well as safety on roads crowded with people in a hurry, many of them on their damn "phones", and mostly inadequate shoulders.  Many strikes against it!  And believe me, I know the laziness one. :D  I used to ride my motorsickle to work and it was SO much easier to back off and take the car.  But once I got oot there, I loved the exhilaration of the motorsickle and that made it worth it.

I'd love to help with this in some respect in retirement.  As they say, if you aren't part of the solution then you are part of the problem.  Insanity really bothers me!

Good point aboot the helmut controversy.  I remember how it was always such an issue in real biking forums. :D (BTW, I much prefer this pseudo cycling forum. :)I think our example has to be the Dutch.  But I think helmuts could eventually be made stylishly acceptable.  Much like those "smoking is glamorous" ads, so are head injuries.  I agree - I always wear a helmut, but I am not a zealot aboot it.  Seeing helmutless motorcyclists really makes me cringe, same as seeing ones in t-shirts and shorts.

 

 

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Of course we love to discuss how we are destroying the planet via fossil fuels because it seems we are headed down a road to destruction, while at the same time, there are possible policies and new directions that we could implement that could alter that course somewhat.  While all this is true, mankind continues to ignore the real elephant in the room, which is OVERPOPULATION.  We have way too many people on the planet now and it is only forecasted to get much worse in the next 50 years.  But does anybody or any government have the balls to do something that might be unpopular but also might save the human race in the long run?  Absolutely not.  No politician is likely to ever get elected proposing limits on baby production.  Even the mass medias seem afraid and won't address this issue.  We know full well the adverse impact that overpopulation has on other species, but we are blind and deaf to the very same effects it will have on our planet and on the future of our own species.  I think future generations will most certainly have to pay a huge price for our gross neglect to address this issue now, well before world wide mass starvation is likely to become the rule of the day.

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When the first Europeans got to New England, the sailors tried to get out of rowing dingys to the shore. There were so many fish that they kept hittting the oars, which hurt.

 

The oceans once teemed with life. The Portuguese, a few hundred years ago, fished from the shore. Then they needed boats to fish the bay. When that was fished out, they needed larger boats to fish the open ocean. They now go all the way up to the Arctic Circle. There isn't much  further they can go..

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