8 hours ago, Bdub22 said:

Way to over-generalize. Statistically, millennials work more hours and have more education than their parents did. People claim that the younger generations seems "entitled", but I think it's more like frustration. Their parents could buy houses back in the day for next to nothing, without a college degree. Loans? No problem. Most young people I know are incredibly hard working. 

Forty three years ago it took my wife and I three years to save up a deposit for a small house.  Three years ago my eldest son saved up for three years to get the deposit on his first house.  My experience is very different to your blanket statement.

14 hours ago, David Mills said:

In other words, in 2022, approximately 90% of our land, even in developed countries, is still pretty much the way it's been for millennia. MSFS can be a great educational tool.

I would present another perspective. How much of the land is significantly affected by our overall development and consumption? For example, we dam and divert incredible amounts of fresh water. So even though we haven’t paved streets and built houses on the entirety of say western Nebraska we have fenced it, controlled it’s resources, and certainly changed its original state.  For better or for worse there are very few square miles of land on this planet where you won’t see or find the presence of some human activity, whether directly or indirectly.

15 hours ago, David Mills said:

namely, the world is mostly empty space

Which gives me hope that Earth and nature will survive our species.

14 hours ago, David Mills said:

I'm just now finishing up my second around-the-world trip in MSFS. And the sim has taught me a valuable lesson about the world's population density -- namely, the world is mostly empty space. Even in highly-developed, densely-populated areas such as the United States, MSFS has revealed to me that only about 10% of the landmass has been developed and populated. (External geographical literature also confirms this 10% approximation.) In other words, in 2022, approximately 90% of our land, even in developed countries, is still pretty much the way it's been for millennia. MSFS can be a great educational tool.

Ahh, if only we could survive and thrive on 'empty space'.  It's all about resources, especially fresh water, soil, and raw materials and what is required to extract them.  Most of that empty space you refer to is largely useless to human expansion.  My late father-in-law looked out at the vast undeveloped space (mostly Nevada & Utah!) and to him this meant there was ample room for further expansion of human population.  One single long human lifespan ago world population was ~1.6B.   A lousy 100y later it's approaching 8B but that's hardly all:  it's the massive increase in demand on resources that is the salient issue.  

Yes, MSFS can be a great educational tool I agree.  However, I have had the exact opposite impression from all of my flying all over the world.  Europe is hardly only about 10% developed and is covered densely wherever arable land exists w/ agricultural plots to support human growth.  There is a reason more is not developed--it's really beyond development for myridad reasons.  The low-hanging fruit is largely already plucked.  The USA is hardly only 10% developed it is massively greater than that-- and the entire west is an arid wasteland were it not for damming of major rivers and right now those rivers are running dry--just watch what happens to So Cal as power generation drops as well as water which is happening right now.  We certainly do not lack empty space but we are very short on new arable land not requiring irrigation, fresh water and even raw materials including those required for conversion to renewables.   

What do you take from your education?

I've moved this to Hangar Chat, as the discussion is mostly non-MSFS related.

Also, it's trending dangerously close to the line on politics/bitter controversy.  Several over-the-top comments have been removed already.

The planet is a beautiful place,

ns

On 4/19/2022 at 10:54 AM, MrBitstFlyer said:

Forty three years ago it took my wife and I three years to save up a deposit for a small house.  Three years ago my eldest son saved up for three years to get the deposit on his first house. 

Good luck doing that with inflation in between...

This topic reminded me of "The Walled City of Kowloon", HK. Apparently it once had around 1.25 million inhabitants per sqaure km, the most densely populated place on Earth. At that density one could in theory  fit all of us roughly 8 billion into either Belgium or Connecticut.

Even though where I live doesn't even come close to being as crowded as that, it nonetheless feels quite crowded.

 

58 minutes ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Good luck doing that with inflation in between...

Inflation was 17.5 percent when we purchased our first home.

28 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Inflation was 17.5 percent when we purchased our first home.

Ah, that's actually low for Argentina standards 😂

We got that in just 3 months 😵

On 4/19/2022 at 9:02 AM, Noel said:

One single long human lifespan ago world population was ~1.6B.   A lousy 100y later it's approaching 8B but that's hardly all:  it's the massive increase in demand on resources that is the salient issue.  

And when Nature ( or a lab... who knows) tries to do what nature does, we the human species shut down the world to try and stop it in in tracks. 8B will double to 16B and so on. We have no hope. Maybe Mars is a good idea after all.

Edited April 20, 20224 yr by Garys

2 hours ago, Garys said:

Maybe Mars is a good idea after all.

My only question is what size of population could Mars support independently from Earth? It wouldn't help Earth if Mars colonists were continuously depleting  Earth's resources.

2 hours ago, dmwalker said:

My only question is what size of population could Mars support independently from Earth?

Let me take a stab at that:  exactly zero!  Okay, maybe Elon Musk--in fact I think I read he was 'born' there 🙃.  

Not sure how many people know about the 'Valeriepieris Circle' you might find this interesting, more then half of the world's total population lives inside of this circle the rest live outside of it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle

Edited April 21, 20224 yr by Matthew Kane