I think it's interesting how the economic bankruptcy (along with societal/political breakdown or bankruptcy) will come after the (badly undiagnosed and under-discussed) intellectual and (for want of a better word) spiritual bankruptcies.

@kmaz Of course because they all have the same source, the breakdown of our life support system. This affects everything we need to get along and survive even things that don't seem connected.
In the UN convention on population in Cairo I kept hearing the adage "No matter what your cause it will be a lost cause if we don't come to grips with overpopulation." Guess what?

@JackPedigo

1. You wrote:
   "....In the UN convention on population in Cairo I kept hearing the adage "No matter what your cause it will be a lost cause if we don't come to grips with overpopulation." Guess what?...."

I think this is a very good point.

2. I wrote:
   "....I think it's interesting how the economic bankruptcy (along with societal/political breakdown or bankruptcy) will come after the (badly undiagnosed and under-discussed) intellectual and (for want of a better word) spiritual bankruptcies....."

to which you responded:
"....Of course because they all have the same source, the breakdown of our life support system. This affects everything we need to get along and survive even things that don't seem connected....."

On this point I disagree. The breakdown of our life support-system, largely or entirely caused by human actions, is in my view a symptom, not the base-level cause of the sorts of issues I laid out. Yes, it then leads to other things and so for some purposes can be seen as a cause, but I think if there is any sort of desire to get to the bottom of things, and to search for and find real base-level solutions which can then lead to real amelioration of other secondary issues (such as climate change) we should be looking elsewhere, such as in the realm of philosophy, human thinking, human nature, social compacts and fresh-sheet-of-paper approaches to the so-called tragedy of the commons. I think more humans in general need to do a better deeper job of discovering reason.

@kmaz So the solution is we should all become philosophers?! So what about all the billions living in impoverished lands just trying to survive yet having no access to birth control or even basic necessities of life? Yes, the main problem is a human failure of understanding what is needed to save ourselves but that idea has long since passed it's, use by date. The breakdown of the life support systems for humans and thousands of other life forms is here and getting bigger each day. So all the hypothetical's will do little to alleviate the end result.

Hi @JackPedigo

"....Yes, the main problem is a human failure of understanding what is needed to save ourselves but that idea has long since passed it's, use by date....."

The main problem is a human failure of understanding about a lot of things, including how to go about our lives, individually, and how best to relate to each other as a society. I have no idea what you are going on about as to a use-by date. Taking time in a discussion forum to understand an issue or effort more deeply does not imply a failure to act on immediate life and death emergencies.

@kmaz There are levels of trying to understand an issue more deeply. Since I have dedicated my life to seeing where this planet of humans is headed, my level goes way beyond mere human interactions. It includes a realization where we are at, at this present moment and that we have far out-stripped the planets carrying capacity and using even more resources will only makes things worse. The failure is basically making everything about us and not the system upon we depend for not only our lives but the thousands of others that are being lost due to our actions. Thousands and thousands of scientists and knowledgeable people have warned us and yet we fail to heed their warnings and the obvious signs of destruction.

Hi - @JackPedigo

you wrote: "....There are levels of trying to understand an issue more deeply. ..."
my response: Yes, we agree on this.

you wrote: "...we have far out-stripped the planets carrying capacity and using even more resources will only makes things worse. The failure is basically making everything about us and not the system upon we depend for not only our lives but the thousands of others that are being lost due to our actions. ..."
my response: the situation is pretty awful, and it won't be fixed just by a solar or battery or electric vehicle innovation, or by a new business model in building efficiency or electric vehicle charging, nor by a leap forward in pollution cleanup. Those things are in my view necessary but not sufficient. Another necessary, but not sufficient, element to system fix is population stabilization and reduction. Another, in my view, is generally more enlightened thinking among people. One of the additional reasons I mention this (aside from the difficulty of shouting out and parsing the externality issue) is that we are on a board where, in theory, we are united by all of us having come to a somewhat more enlightened personal philosophic place.

To be sure, I can empathize with a point of view that we dare not "wait around" for Christianity and the like to fade away, if we want to deal with immediate existential environmental and system overload issues. I agree with this. But "waiting around" inappropriately, in the face of an existential crisis is different from acknowledging that we are humans and guided (over the course of our lifetimes) in our behavior (which we are trying to think of ways to modify) by principles (whether good ones or bad ones is a different matter). So, simultaneously, while we are trying to think of effective immediate practical ethical appropriate ways to get 8 billion people, of various degrees of enlightened thinking and primitive thinking, to change course and avoid the worst of the system overload problem (which is centuries in the making so we are too far down the road to avoid a decent portion of it) .... while we are working on this, I also think simultaneously we should carve out additional resources better to understand ourselves, and this would (in my view) help improve our imperfect response to the various crises taking place on the ground.

@kmaz I don't understand the last part "..we should carve our additional resources better to understand ourselves..." We can't (get resources0 what's not there. Even living fairly independently on an island one is still dependent on others use of critical resources. Again, it all boils down to the number of people and their activities. There re things one has no control over and one biggie here are the ferries. We are undergoing a county change in our growth management plan (the county thinks we can accommodate more people) and many of us disagree. Too often those making rules fail to see externalities.

Hi - @JackPedigo

In this case the word "resources" does not refer to natural resources. The phrasing "carve out resources" was meant to try to bring up the more abstruse non-concrete issue of (to put it another way) setting aside effort to improve our thinking.