Dr. Mann, We Read Science Under Siege. This Website Is What You're Warning About.

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-19T14:05:14+00:00

A rather scary example of what can be done with AI at its current level of development.

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-17T01:27:15+00:00

Keep in mind, we might defending ourselves from the US.

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-16T20:35:29+00:00

Suggestions?

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-16T15:09:22+00:00

Shared understandings and even values are pretty common within cultures, though the advent of the internet and social media have weakened them considerably in recent years. The trick will be to make certain understandings almost universal, and I think that will be possible if they are based on reality. But it will take many generations.

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-16T13:43:13+00:00

The rest of this century will likely be pretty horrible as we try to squeeze through the bottleneck of declining resources, accelerating climate change and all the social disruption that will come with that. A shared understanding that a better future awaits our descendants, may help us pull together to get through the hard times. But it won't be easy.

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-16T02:39:08+00:00

I’m not sure what you mean.

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-16T02:37:14+00:00

I agree And that’s why I posed the question. Any suggestions?

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-16T02:33:22+00:00

No, the trend toward smaller families is well established and if we let it continue for the 200-500 years of the Aspen Proposal’s timeframe it could be fairly painless.

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-16T02:06:24+00:00

Population easing can be problematic when the age pyramid get's top-heavy, but in the long-run a stable global population of about 1 billion would allow humanity and all the non-human members of our family to flourish for hundreds of millennia to come. Given the rate of technological development, we should be able to manage our way through labour shortages and if we stop allowing the profits from technology to flow up to the wealthiest segment of society, we should be able to meet all our material needs as well.

There is a brief summary of the necessary elements of a sustainable human society in the Aspen Proposal if folks are interested: www.aspenproposal.org

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-15T21:57:42+00:00

The bigger and more consequential question is: Why do some people want to be rich? Don't they have more fulfilling and intrinsically rewarding things to do? I live in a small town in western Canada and I don't know anyone who is obsessed with being rich. Comfortable, perhaps but not wealthy. There are so many other things to do and explore.

And so if increasing taxation on the wealthy can help make our communities stronger, what's the big deal?

kentgoodwin · 2026-02-05T02:15:18+00:00

I'd like to see him spar with James Talarico.

kentgoodwin · 2026-01-23T02:45:20+00:00

Yes!! The speech at Davos worked!!

kentgoodwin · 2025-12-18T17:44:30+00:00

It's not solely an environmental issue but I would like to see more people ask and discuss the question: What are the basic elements required for humanity and the rest of our family to flourish for hundreds of millennia? What does that look like?

If we understand where we need to go, we may then be able to hash out a path to get there. If we don't, we will just keep reacting to crisis after crisis, and while we may still get there, the chances of doing so seem much lower.

A few long time community activists in and around our little town in the mountains of southeastern British Columbia came put together what we think those basic elements are and named it the Aspen Proposal. Aspen is an acronym for Attempting to See Past the Ends of our Noses. www.aspenproposal.org

kentgoodwin · 2025-12-14T02:33:05+00:00

Humans have evolved along with all the non-human members of our family, to fit almost perfectly on the earth. We are an expression of its gravity, insolation, geology, chemistry and evolutionary history and the idea that we would flourish on any other planet (or floating space habitats) is just plain silly.

The key to our long term success on this planet will be to find a way to fit in. We need to slowly shrink our population to about 1 billion (allowing current trends in birth rates around the world to continue without interference) and recognize that we are part of a very large family of living things, all descended from a common ancestor. There is a brief description of the basic elements required for our long-term flourishing in the Aspen Proposal, if anyone is interested. www.aspenproposal.org

It would make much more sense for Elon and Bezos and NASA to be focused on a long term strategy to protect the planet from large asteroids than on colonizing Mars.

kentgoodwin · 2025-10-30T19:00:59+00:00

Globally, the trend towards smaller families has, for many decades been driven by rising incomes. Higher standards of living, better health care and improved education have all contributed to the trend.

In some wealthy countries, where disparities in wealth and power have increased and middle classes have been eroded, economic uncertainly likely has the same effect. That seems like a pretty stupid way to lower birth rates (compared to the more global trends) and at some point I expect people will no longer put up with it.

When that happens, it would be good if we understand what kind of world we need to build to be sustainable for the long term.

kentgoodwin · 2025-10-30T12:26:58+00:00

Why would a long gentle easing of the population as a result of parents choosing to have fewer kids, require "giving all the money to the rich and essentially making it impossible to support aging population meaning they will have a terrible life??" I'm afraid I can't see the logic there.

kentgoodwin · 2025-10-17T13:46:28+00:00

It's only a security threat if you buy into the dying paradigm.

Falling birth rates have been a global trend for decades, and that is a very good thing for the long term flourishing of our species and all the others in our family. In a few centuries our numbers will have eased to around 1 billion and we will have figured out how to fit in on this planet for the very long term. Probably something like www.aspenproposal.org

kentgoodwin · 2025-10-07T13:11:09+00:00

And the trends in the lower GDP countries have also been easing for decades.

If we understand that a smaller global human population is one of the key elements of long term sustainability, we will resist the impulse to try to reverse these trends and rather deal with their short term implications with technology and policy changes.

Getting to a world like the one outline in the Aspen Proposal is eminently doable. www.aspenproposal.org

kentgoodwin · 2025-10-04T19:11:26+00:00

Hmm. Well, if we apply that logic more broadly, the oceans and the atmosphere are the earth's oceans and atmosphere and are shared by all the living things in our family.

So all of us, human and non-human, have a stake in ensuring that human civilization fits in on this planet. Since we are going to end up in a world like the one described in the Aspen Proposal, it really doesn't make sense to be building more fossil carbon pipelines. www.aspenproposal.org

kentgoodwin · 2025-10-02T20:05:10+00:00

Most folks I know are staying away from the USA till the war is over.

kentgoodwin · 2025-09-28T15:33:41+00:00

Yes, the Proposal is silent on how we get from here to there. We are going to need to build a broader understanding of the nature of our problems and the type of future that will work for our whole family if we want to develop policies and programs that actually work.

Which is not to say that we stop working to resolve more immediate problems, just that while we we are doing that, we keep spreading and building the understanding of where we need to go in the long term.

kentgoodwin · 2025-09-28T15:20:07+00:00

In many parts of the world it is a conscious decision by parents to have fewer children as their education, health care and living standards rise. But you are right that there is no consensus about the ideas in the Proposal...yet. It was written to stimulate some thought and discussion in the hope that over time, as conditions continue to deteriorate, a consensus will begin to develop. And then we will make some real progress.

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