Recent content by out of whack

You are strictly correct: it's not possible for anything to exceed its maximum possible. But I don't think of overpopulation in technical terms, I find it to be a subjective point of view. When members of a population suffer (a relative term) from resource shortages (another relative term) then...

Not enough food and water for more? Limitless growth within a limited world is an impossibility. At some point human population will either stabilize to a steady state or crash.

How many people can be supported depends on too many factors to arrive at a definite number. For example, what standard of living you expect them to have? Eg. how much fresh water can each person consume given that rainfalls don't respond to population size? What sources of energy can replace...

Yes, good point about avoidance. But a robot.txt file can inform Google and the other main engines not to index the section in question so that only a search from within PF would locate these. Greg may know other tricks. If attracting crackpots wasn't a problem, would this have any merit at...

I came across something odd on the world wide tubes today: an "observation" that measurements of the speed of light have shown an increasing speed over the years during which it has been measured (presumably before time measurement was linked to this speed), suggesting that the value of c may be...

Actually I should explain. You're changing terms again after I told you that you shouldn't change terms. I don't think you even noticed. Life as an American isn't the same thing as an American's life. If you had claimed to prefer an American's life to a Sudanese's life then you would claim...

Wow leopard, you're not very good at this. I'm out.

Be careful not to switch terms in mid-stream. Based on your stated preference your question should ask: "Does that make life as an American more valuable than life as a Sudanese?" ...and you have already given your answer.

My personal preference of course. Wouldn't you also prefer a healthy life than a unhealthy one? I think everybody agrees on that one.

A little bit, yes. 42? It's not really a numbers game.

Not really. In "5 lives > 1 life" the "life" units cancel out and you end up talking about mere numbers where 5 > 1. The thing is, you only have a moral dilemma when more than just a number of identical lives is at stake, that is, when the units are different. If you just ask "what is better, 5...

[Edit mine.] It you create a scenario that is purely a numbers game then all moral dilemma disappear.

I won't kill an innocent to save a group who put themselves in danger by their own actions. That's not moral. And it would dilute the gene pool. So it's a "no" for the second scenario. The first scenario is less clear because I don't know if the man is aware that the switch is protecting him or...

Oblivious people standing on train tracks probably deserve a Darwin award. Natural selection culls as many weak links as needed to the betterment of the surviving population.

No, the coolest is the Isle of Man's flag: Come on, three (3) legs. How cool is that!? From the land of the tailless cats.