ForumsWEPRWould You Want the Earth to Become an Ecumenopolis?

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Necrotic
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Necrotic
195 posts
Nomad

There would be many consequences to making the Earth an Ecumenopolis, such as the(almost) complete destruction of the environment. But assuming that we could have a "Green" Ecumenopolis, would you want the Earth to be one, or do you think it would it be wrong to make the only homes for(most of) the other living creatures on Earth ones that we made ourselves?

Ecumenopolis- "World City", think of Coruscant from Star Wars.

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Mammon
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Mammon
63 posts
Nomad

I would greatly dislike leaving in 'Ecumenopolis', simply because I love the outdoors. I am sure in this "World City" there would be fake forests and such, but it just would not seem the same to me. Besides, it would be hard to keep many species of animal alive, considering we would be destroying their environments - that alone would cost a great multitude of cash to support places that could hold such animals.

italianCarz
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italianCarz
1 posts
Nomad

Definatly not. Why would someone want to trade in the bueaty of nature for a concrete labyrinth?

Grimlok
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Grimlok
154 posts
Nomad

I despise cities already, if the entire world was one, I'd go mad. Besides, nature should be the diety of the earth, not humanity.

Strop
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Strop
10,817 posts
Bard

Oh I like this question!

I think that most people wouldn't like the idea of living in a world consisting of a concrete jungle (me neither, for that matter). There are a bunch of reasons but the one I want to emphasise is the possibility that urban living may be a vehicle or even a source of a certain sense of spiritual malaise/ennui in itself, even considering the cultural trends of the past centuries.

"Urban jungle" seems to be a term that pays no heed to the roots of humanity- it seems to connote a pervasive, relentless face of soulless progress at the expense of all other things one may hold sacred to the way of life in general.

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The other thing I'd like to see discussed is whether we'd be faced with such a choice in the coming centuries. Let's consider the rapid growth of newly industrialised countries and the trend towards development (e.g. China), as well as the issue of urban sprawl in already developed areas. I believe this question is related to the question of what is going to happen to the human population in the future (see threads on voluntary human extinction movement, and space colonisation), as some facts will remain constant: living beings always incur a cost on the environment, and tendency to growth necessitates infrastructure, which reinforces growth!

Megamickel
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Megamickel
902 posts
Peasant

the VHEMT isn't big enough to really make a difference, and I don't think enough people will agree with their ideals to actually go along with them. Especially people who are intelligent enough to see through their BLATANT propaganda.

Strop
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Strop
10,817 posts
Bard

Yes yes, Mega, but the world takes all sorts, and I didn't mean for this thread to be about voluntary human extinction :P

Gosh, it musta really disturbed you huh.

WallyOhio
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WallyOhio
146 posts
Nomad

An ecumenopolis sounds intriguing as a skater, but like a nightmare as a nature lover...

kanethebrain
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kanethebrain
242 posts
Nomad

It's an interesting question. The destruction of the wildlife in favor of human expansion is probably not worth it. For one thing, quality of life would be much lower; there's a reason cities have large parks. The lack of farmland means we'd all be eating seafood (ew!) or, given the amount of biomaterial we'd need to support a population that large, algae glob (EW!). Not to mention that nature produces a ton of medicines that we have yet to discover. Hate to find out that we paved over the cure for cancer...

Really, what humanity should do is consolidate. What's the point of having standalone houses on half-acre plots? Yea, I like having a yard and all, but consider this: Take the 20 houses (or so) in a subdivision. Build a 10 story apartment building in one of the lots, and give each family half a floor. Now, everyone has internal space as large as they did before, but they have a 9.5 acre park to play in.

Strop
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Strop
10,817 posts
Bard

I'm in two minds about that suggestion, kane. On one hand, it's like putting the community back in city.

On the other...well I'm not sure yet. I'll have to come back to this.

Strategy_guy
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Strategy_guy
290 posts
Nomad

Kane the probl;em with doing that is the fact that we don't have a yard. Say we go along with your idea but in a larger scale if we build say 20 of your ten story apartments in a circle or square or whatever shape you want then no one has a yard. Yes we have park but then like 50 familys will have to share the park and we know how well humans share. Secondly, as Strop said we wouldn't have the lovely suburan areas that we love, or some of us love. Thirdly, if we are saying every apartment has one trash area, the waste supplys of each apartment would be enormus so trash people would have to come out more to get the trash out. Fourthly, if there was a major earthquake and one of these apartment things fell over well we'd have a domino effect going on. Again playing on the saftey thing think of attacks with 12 or 10 familys living in one area if one bomb is planted bye bye familys and if they plant a bomb on the support system then again, dominos.

Having a Ecumenoplis is a bad thing just think of all the wastes and carbon dioxide emitted from all the houses/factorys and everyhting else. This world would be destroyed pretty fast

kanethebrain
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kanethebrain
242 posts
Nomad

Strategy_guy: well, yes you don't have yard: that's the point. You're also extending the idea the wrong way. Instead of having 20 apartment complexes next to each other, you have a half mile between them with parkland/forest/ponds between them. Sounds like plenty of space to play sports, walk the dog, go fishing, go for a short hike, etc. All these things you could do with your suburban lifestyle and quite a few more.

If you have 10-20 families on 9 acres of land and are having trouble "sharing" the space (excluding how they are going to use the land in a way that denies to to others), then I suggest the problem is with you and not the idea. I live in an apartment complex, and we share a small courtyard (maybe a quarter of an acre) without any problems, and I have 5-10 times as many people sharing an area 10-20 times smaller than I'm suggesting. So, sharing the land isn't a problem.

Also, just because you like suburbia doesn't mean it's a good idea. It's less sustainable, and restricts people to smaller part of land, and fosters a mentality of "my yard" instead of "our park". And you never know, maybe you would like having your friends close by with a bigger area to play around in than you would like suburbia.

I have no idea where you got a problem with the trash. Again, I live in a MUCH larger apartment complex, and somehow we don't have a problem with trash disposal. 20 families are going to produce the same amount of trash whether they are in separate homes or in one large building.

Also, earthquakes happen frequently in areas with apartment buildings, and the mass death you seem to be anticipating hasn't been a problem since people started building earthquake proof buildings decades ago. The buildings would be spaced out (remember, half a mile or so between buildings) so there's no chance of any domino effect.

And in reality, terrorists rarely attack residential areas. Most attacks occur in marketplaces or the like. Large attacks will target government buildings or landmarks. I think you vastly overestimate the ability of terrorists to destroy a building. Most terrorist attempts fail. The majority that don't fail kill fewer than 10 people. Not to mention most buildings could handle a couple of car bombs without being destroyed.


In short, this idea would be better for the environment, better for social interaction, easier on the budget, and I daresay would look better also.

turret
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turret
1,628 posts
Shepherd

yeah thats true

SkullZero1
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SkullZero1
511 posts
Nomad

I think that we should not have an ecumenopolis on earth, it would be bad on many levels, but let me take this a step further, I think we should turn the moon into one, its already inhabitable and has no grass or forest, so why not?

Strop
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Strop
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Bard

That would be an extraordinarily expensive project with few forseeable benefits (at least, right now, that is!)

I wouldn't be so hot on the idea of building said ecumenopolis on the surface of the moon, either- call me a conservationist but it would look rather funny from Earth :P That aside, exactly what kind of resource infrastructure would such a civilisation have to support it?

kanethebrain
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kanethebrain
242 posts
Nomad

SkullZero1, I'm you mean the moon is "uninhabitable". You know, the whole lack of an atmosphere thing

Strop: Who says it has to be on the surface of the moon? Leave the surface be an build tunnels. Hey, they're built in walls!

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