Weve been past 2billion for nigh on 100 years now. Birth rates are declining though - sh*t just happens and works out.

I got totally side tracked. I just meant to write a global warming is bollocks post but meh. No offense intended in any of my posts Chris, I know youre a diamond geezer.

We should wipe out Southampton, Slough, Newport, the Isle of Wight and Crewe tbh. That would make sense.

No offense taken, I rarely get the chance to spread the doom and gloom I was subjected to whilst at Uni, and have some form of discussion on it. I think the first week I was there I was shown a presentation of piles of dead bodies (it was for forensics people but we shared some units), and in another lecture told were all f**ked.

Ive always been in favour of using the Isle of Wight as a venue for a battle royale. I thought putting 100 chavs on the island with nothing but sticks at one end, and half a dozen of the PC brigade (in this instance the people that believe its everyones fault except the repeat offender that hes been charged for the 50th time for GBH) at the other with guns should prove an interesting mix.

hehe

It would be interesting to get hold cold facts without all the media and aid bullcrap.

We need to sort things in a lot of areas like pollution - Hell yes, but we are getting a lot of bullcrap at the moment from a lot of people.

Quote from: neXusIt would be interesting to get hold cold facts without all the media and aid bullcrap.

We need to sort things in a lot of areas like pollution - Hell yes, but we are getting a lot of bullcrap at the moment from a lot of people.

If you have a friend at a uni get them to see if they can get an Athens account for you, or whatever the NZ equivalent is. Its basically a system where you can access the scientific journals the uni subscribes to, which usually is nearly all of them. Certainly the facts I remember are ones from the original published papers, rather than from the media

Quote from: neXus

Quote from: zpyderI think the point of the whole "get rid of xxx population" or "build on xxx" isnt to say, wipe out africa and leave it as a wasteland. For instance if we got rid of chinas population itd dramatically lower global human population and reduce various consumption and emissions levels, but it would indeed be stupid to leave the resources there.

In "zpyder world" some placed like africa and/or china would be annexed, people moved out/sent to soylent green factories, and the land used for the resources with a crew of farmers/workers. This would supply the resources needed for the rest of the world.

With that you have the other side of things.

Cancer 100% cure which is getting there (more and more types now have drugs to cure/prevent them) as well as aids which they probably will cure or prevent permanently in the next 50 years. 3rd world countries are where it will be needed the most of course (aids wise for example) but will be to expensive for them. These need to be cheap as chips to be viable but once they do hit these countries we will run into big problems.
These are horrible things and sad people die from them but they are controlling populations in many parts of the world. A lot of these countries do not mind and do have 3/4//5/6/7 Kids no problem and the population blow out once aides is gone is going to cause a load more problems. China is already getting crazy and they have child family limits already.

Cancer is unlikely to be cured - at least a cure is never likely t be released.

The pharma companies make too much money from the drugs used to treat the symptoms.

Just the same way as we wont see true alternative energy in earnest for years, the oil companies are making too much money.

Both these industries effectively control world government.

Quote from: zpyder

Quote from: neXusIt would be interesting to get hold cold facts without all the media and aid bullcrap.

We need to sort things in a lot of areas like pollution - Hell yes, but we are getting a lot of bullcrap at the moment from a lot of people.

If you have a friend at a uni get them to see if they can get an Athens account for you, or whatever the NZ equivalent is. Its basically a system where you can access the scientific journals the uni subscribes to, which usually is nearly all of them. Certainly the facts I remember are ones from the original published papers, rather than from the media

This is what pisses me off about academics. They want to hide and keep secret among themselves all their research - lest someone else might actually understand that 99% of it is BS.

Really? What academics do you know? The ones I know all strive to publish as much as they can, which is surely the exact opposite to what you have just described, as generally to get some work published you need to be clear enough in your metholody so that anyone can go away and reproduce your findings.

Cant get much clearer than that, climategate aside.

If youre referring to the Athens thing for access to the papers, anyone can subscribe to the papers if they want to pay the fees.

I do agree though on the pharmaceutical and energy companies though. Well only see such products when existing things are no longer profitable for them. Keep raising the oil prices and so when ultimately we switch fuel types were happy to pay prices which could and should be much lower than they charge.

All research should be made available to everyone. That is what I mean. They shouldnt be hidden behind fees. There is also a lot of medical research (That doesnt affect patents or products) that isnt released.

I can see why there is a need for stuff not to be released until its done (And from what I can tell from where the Mrs works - until they can fabricate the results to get their drugs approved!), but once its done - public domain. I think things would come along a lot more quickly that way.

As for academics,

1 x Dr in Artificial intelligence
1  is a GP doing his MD
1 x Dr in town planning
1 x Dr in cell microbiology, specialises in something to do with cancer (The Mrs)
2 x Drs of Law (One of whom is my best mate)

I should also add - my bitterness is based on 4 months spent in a major nuclear research centre! It was a total bitch fest.

While partly Mark it is true treatment over cure makes money it also costs them. IF they can develop an effective cure or new machine, new medicine etc and can produce it, with things like cancer and aides the number of people involved they will be wanting to get these out on the market in my opinion and from a bit of reading it seems the case for many others. These cures would be a premium to start off with then mass produced when cheaper and would make a lot of money, the publicity for the company/s that first offer these as well would send stocks soaring etc. Oh I can see them holding on to it for the right time, they may even be doing so already but they will get them out there to make their money.

Quote from: MarkAll research should be made available to everyone. That is what I mean. They shouldnt be hidden behind fees. There is also a lot of medical research (That doesnt affect patents or products) that isnt released.

I can see why there is a need for stuff not to be released until its done (And from what I can tell from where the Mrs works - until they can fabricate the results to get their drugs approved!), but once its done - public domain. I think things would come along a lot more quickly that way.

From my understanding though a lot of the fees for the journals goes back into science in the form of grants and funding. Cut out the fees and the science will suffer. The journals with the highest fees tend to be the more prestigious in the field. The fees are high because they only publish the best quality work, as a result the scientists aiming to get published in them strive to produce quality work to get in. If everything was free Id imagine the editorial/review standards could slip on the basis of there being less incentive to cherry pick the papers?

Id also say that when Ive been doing literature reviews, maybe 25% of the papers Ive come across that Ive needed to read have been freely available in the public domain. Its not much I admit, but its something. In general the other papers are accessible one way or another if the person really wants to read them, and 99% of the time the abstract is available which will give you the skeleton of the paper anyway.

As to research that isnt released, Id agree that it should be if it is actually important (such as research that shows drug x can cause undesirable side effects). I dont think research not being released is down to the academics though, all the ones I know would want ANY findings they have made publicy available, the blame almost always falls to the people paying the bills, so in medical terms its the pharma company, not the researchers at fault, and in other cases usually the client funding the research. There is a difference IMHO between academic research and commercial research.

Any grants I have been involved in have come from industry or large companies. Depends what area you work in I suppose.

Note...I didnt say that all grants come from papers, only that as far as Im aware a lot of the money goes into grants, which is still only peanuts compared to what the industry will pay.