"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
He gives some eye opening examples. Anytime you have a geometric progression of growth of consumption, or an entity directly linked to consumption, like population, you have problems.
Boulder's population is now about 108K.
How long has it been growing exponentially?
Albert Bartlett has given the same presentation 1,540 times.
That's the equivalent of once a day, every day, for more than four years. But the 81-year-old physics professor emeritus at the University of Colorado has spread things out a bit. He has been teaching his lesson on the power and danger of exponential growth since 1969.
I wonder how much he gets paid per speech.
Boulder County, Colorado's estimated population is 329,316 with a growth rate of 0.48% in the past year according to the most recent United States census data.
0.48 is a 140 year doubling time, so it's not an immediate concern.
He doesn't look like the type to make a lot of money. The talks are probably gratis.
Malthus didn't understand exponential growth. Neither did Erlich. This guy doesn't either.
Is population growth exponential? Think so. Seems like a pretty natural fit to me. I assume he has a PhD in physics, so a basic understanding of exponents and logarithms should be a basic part of his repertoire.
He's made a career out of frigtening people who don't understand basics and will pay to be frightned. Like, no real system grows exponentially forever.
Boulder does not have a trillion people now. Neither does Earth.
How many kids do you have?
I don't think his presentation is that dramatic to frighten people. He is just discussing facts And the fact that no real exponential system lasts indefinitely is his point.
I've wondered just how reasonable it is for literally everyone to be able to participate in making the decisions which guide all our lives. Should everyone have the right to vote no matter how provably stupid they are.
I watched a recent Jordan Klepper video interviewing anti-mask/anti-vaxers. Some of the people have so little ability to actually think and form thoughts that are logical it is amazing they can survive. One lady was out there protesting but said she didn't vote because it takes too much time. I guess protesting for her is a form of recreation.
Should we have some sort of mental ability test to allow people to vote?
That show is a hoot. But as long as these kinds form a sizable fraction of the population, and they do, you can't take away their right to vote.
Recently the supervisors in a northern Virginia county prohibited the teaching of that 1619 Project and critical race theory in their schools. The 1619 Project is mostly racist misinformation and the CRT is too complicated for any but advanced high school and college level. Claiming to "teach" these subjects to any lower level is nothing but indoctrination, it's not teaching.
you had that before,
Not quite the same thing. Stupid isn't a race.
Some of those examples are amazing, "Draw five circles that one common interlocking part." "Write right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here." No one could pass this test, but that's the point! You only pass if the registrar says you passed.
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