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thewanderer
Guest
What exactly do you mean by “lose” energy though? Its not as though the universe can run out of energy. It may run out of fossil fuels, but its not as though we can somehow suck all the energy out of the universe. From Einstein we have that famous equation, E=MC2. Which basically says that the energy in the universe is equal to the mass in the universe times some constant (which is neither negative or zero). Which means so long as there are things with mass in the universe there will also be energy. It might take work finding ways to access and harness that energy, and through each energy conversion we lose access to some of that energy, but its not as if it just disappears and is zapped out of the universe, it simply takes on a different form. So really what you are talking about isn’t the destruction of energy, its the effectiveness of technology to convert energy into a usable form, and people are working on this problem of trying to find new and more effective ways to harness energy. In other words, its not a question of running out of energy to harness but rather of the effectiveness and efficiency of our harnessing methods and the more we develop these technologies, the less of a problem it is.
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manualman
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In the historical record, TFR’s start to fall dramatically one to three generations after a family changes from the poor, rural lifestyle to the wealthier urban industrial lifestyle. Causes are numerous, not simple. Obviously contraception itself is not new. Onanism,for example, is as old as human history. But I’m also not terribly convinced that we moderns are as smart as we think we are compared to our forefathers. For most healthy women not subject to a plethora of pharmaceuticals, monitoring fertility symptoms is not high-tech. You need eyeballs and toilet paper and the ability to count to four. So whether people used primitive contraception or primitive NFP, the point is that urbanization flips the economics of parenthood on its head. Instead of kids being financial assets, they become a financial burden.
Urban society is highly dependent on careers and specialized job skills (education, apprenticeships, etc). Industrialization also brought along with it later marriage ages, which by itself reduces the number of children compared to farm couples who start having babies at 17.
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Joie_de_Vivre
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Um, stress, lots of exercise, illness, low body fat can all cause an irregular menstrual cycle and some women just naturally have a rather irregular menstrual cycle.
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thewanderer
Guest
I hate to break it to you, but NFP works whether or not your cycles are regular, it might be a little more frustrating, it might take longer to learn the system, but it still works. One of the reasons I think every teenage girl should be taught how to understand their fertility is so that they can always know when their next period will be, they can learn which emotional and other cyclical symptoms they tend to suffer from and can know, even if their cycles are irregular, what general time to expect these symptoms. Learning NFP has helped ensure that I will never again be left unprepared for my period and that I know which week I can expect to suffer PMS and so take appropriate precautions. Without NFP I would know generally and usually, but with NFP I can now know always even when I have extremely weird and irregular cycles. Its actually really empowering to be able to understand whats going on and know that you are never again going to be caught off-guard by unexpected feminine issues. And that is true regardless of whether you are trying to achieve or avoid, or even whether you are sexually active in the first place. Modern methods of NFP (or FAM as it is known in secular circles) are not rhythm or calender based. They are extremely scientific and empowering to women.
Um, stress, lots of exercise, illness, low body fat can all cause an irregular menstrual cycle and some women just naturally have a rather irregular menstrual cycle.
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Joie_de_Vivre
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I’m not talking about NFP, I’m talking about him saying “You need eyeballs and toilet paper and the ability to count to four”
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thewanderer
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I guess I don’t get it… thats really all you need, even if your cycles are irregular.
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Joie_de_Vivre
Guest
Then why do so many complain about how hard NFP is and how it manages to fail on them? Or is that just selection bias in that the people who have it work don’t comment?I guess I don’t get it… thats really all you need, even if your cycles are irregular.
As I have absolutely no intention of getting married (celibacy>marriage) it’s not that relevant to me though I should probably look into it just for knowledge.
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thewanderer
Guest
Oh, the fact that it doesn’t take many materials doesn’t mean its automatically easy peasy. But if you understand how it works, and follow the rules, (even the one to abstain whenever you are not clearly infertile) the above supplies are all you need to successfully (of course allowing for the small failure rate that any form of birth control has) avoid another pregnancy. It might be frustrating, the abstinence may be difficult etc, but if you really want to avoid, you really don’t need that much. The rules are few and simple, following them strictly can be tough (which is where the vast majority of “NFP failed on us” comments come from. Not to denigrate any of those people, It can be tough, NFP as a method of spacing pregnancies is not for the feint of heart. But that doesn’t change the fact that the rules are simple and few, and supplies negligible.
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manualman
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These would be a big deal for the rhythm method. They are not factors at all when it comes to using mucus symptoms to detect fertility (known today as Billings Method NFP). What screws up mucus symptoms for lots of women today is mucus-suppressant pharmaceuticals.
Um, stress, lots of exercise, illness, low body fat can all cause an irregular menstrual cycle and some women just naturally have a rather irregular menstrual cycle.
Note that there is a HUGE difference between the effects of even primitive understanding of fertility recognition on large population TFRs and the level of reliability for any given individual.
Side story for illustration: Back in the early days of vaccines when infectious diseases still killed large numbers of people, the vaccines THEMSELVES often had bad side effects or in some cases even caused the disease. If you were one of the people that happened to, vaccines probably seemed like a terrible thing, but at the population level they vastly reduced the incidence of those diseases even though they were themselves dangerous. In a similar manner, even crude and roughly understood NFP methods will significantly reduce pregnancy rates at the population level if the couples are trying to avoid pregnancy. But you’ll still have plenty of individual stories where pregnancies resulted anyways. See the similarity?
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manualman
Guest
That’s not entirely fair either. There are some people who have underlying conditions that disrupt the typical fertility symptoms. Worse yet, we have a medical system today that doesn’t consider those underlying problems to be worthy of serious treatment. The typical approach instead is to prescribe hormones to overpower the symptoms rather than to resolve the actual problem. Those are the folks that have the worst time of NFP practice.
But biologically speaking, they are the exception, not the rule.
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thewanderer
Guest
Yes, that is true. I guess what I meant by they are simple though is that if your signs are unsure you count yourself as fertile. So even if your symptoms are difficult to interpret according to the normal set of rules, you have a back-up rule which is very clear and easy to understand and know when to apply. Which rule would make life extremely difficult for people with difficult symptoms to interpret, and I have all the sympathy in the world for such people, I can’t imagine how difficult a cross that must be.
But by now we have quite successfully derailed this thread, so I think its time for me to bow out.
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TheWarriorMonk
Guest
Second Law of Thermodynamics.
If you were ever interested in a physical law that has never been shown to be wrong, that’s the one.
It’s difficult to have this conversation without understanding the physical laws that govern energy use. It’s not about how much energy there is, but rather how much useful energy there is. Energy conversion is never 100%, nor can it be if work is involved. In order to reuse that energy, it has to be converted to a usable form, resulting in a net loss of energy.
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thewanderer
Guest
A net loss of usable energy you mean? So, as I said its not a question of losing energy but losing access to energy. Which is something people continue to work on as they develop technology, esp via the development of new methods for harnessing renewable sources of energy. I could be missing something but I really don’t see how the laws of thermodynamics change anything I have said.
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manualman
Guest
It is rather a bad habit of mine…But by now we have quite successfully derailed this thread, so I think its time for me to bow out.
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THP
Guest
Of course, matter (and energy) can never be created or destroyed however from a practical stand point it is “lost” when work is done.
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thewanderer
Guest
lol, I’m a pretty good expert at it myself.
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LittleDavid
Guest
World Population:
1 Billion- Year 1804
2 Billion- Year 1927
3 Billion- Year 1959
4 Billion- Year 1974
5 Billion- Year 1987
6 Billion- Year 1999
7 Billion- Year 2011
(Source-U.N.)
Species Extinctions Since 1800(rounded off):
1830=300 extinctions
1860=500 extinctions
1890=750 "
1920=2,250 "
1950=6,750 "
1980=18,500 "
2010=53,000 "
You draw your own conclusions. The fact is the earth is a finite inter connected ecosystem. Population is effecting the planet. If you don’t care if the Red Wolf(130 left on the planet), Rhino, Condor, along with others go extinct, then fine. It all depends on what kind of Earth YOU want to live on.
1 Billion- Year 1804
2 Billion- Year 1927
3 Billion- Year 1959
4 Billion- Year 1974
5 Billion- Year 1987
6 Billion- Year 1999
7 Billion- Year 2011
(Source-U.N.)
Species Extinctions Since 1800(rounded off):
1830=300 extinctions
1860=500 extinctions
1890=750 "
1920=2,250 "
1950=6,750 "
1980=18,500 "
2010=53,000 "
You draw your own conclusions. The fact is the earth is a finite inter connected ecosystem. Population is effecting the planet. If you don’t care if the Red Wolf(130 left on the planet), Rhino, Condor, along with others go extinct, then fine. It all depends on what kind of Earth YOU want to live on.
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GEddie
Guest
I want to see enforced population control in order to save those species even less, though.
ICXC NIKA
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Rau
Guest
Well, yes - agreed.
But the questions which reasonably flow from the initial topic are more like:
- Does the current population present an excessive strain on the global ecosystem, and is that situation correctable by better resource management?
- What is the global population trajectory anticipated in the future, and what are the implications for the global ecosystem?
And the question that always comes to my mind is:
- If the world abandoned all forms of artificial birth control (ABC), how does the answer to (2) change?
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