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    Last modified 03/04/08


        Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
Adapted for the Internet from:   Why God Doesn't Exist

    In order to understand how the upcoming economic collapse resembles the phenomenon that led to the
    disappearance of the dinosaurs, I begin by asking the crucial question: ‘What things do we really need in
    life?’

    Mahatma Ghandi reportedly answered that he could live without air or water, but not without God. Judy
    Garland claimed that she could live without money, but not without love. Maslow adds sleep,
    homeostasis, and excretion, and the list goes on and on.  One fellow proposes that the Internet is sine qua
    non these days. Another says that  books are absolutely essential. And yet another says that he will die if
    he doesn't have a ferret. The only way I can think dying without a ferret is if I haven't eaten for a week and
    the damned mink weaseled out of my oven.

    So I will rephrase the question since the poet-at-heart doesn't seem to understand. What are the things we
    need to stay alive?

    In its description for Respiratory Therapist, the Occupational Outlook Handbook of the Bureau of Labor
    Statistics does not mention God or love or any of the other metaphors the poets and philosophers
    brainstorm. It lists the true essentials:

    " You can live without water for a few days and without food for a few weeks. But
       without oxygen, you will suffer brain damage within a few minutes and die after
       about 9 minutes." [1]

    We certainly can live without computers as demonstrated by people in the Dark Ages, and hermits and
    prisoners are good examples that we don’t really need love or friends to remain alive. Atheists also seem
    to get along fine without God. Of course we need to sleep and defecate, but these are internal to the body,
    for free, and clearly not as fundamental as food. Without food, we don't even have to worry about
    pooping. Therefore, in order to answer the question objectively, we must eliminate abstract concepts and
    physiological activities. Humans can live only after they first fulfill their biological needs.

    For all practical purposes, we can assume air to be unlimited. (I don’t believe anyone will corner the
    market on breathable gases any time soon although I won't bet against it by holding my breath.) Potable
    water is a different matter. It is supplied by the State and increasingly by private corporations which
    promise to make it available to all… at the right price, of course! Although the U.N. has declared water to
    be a basic human right, [2] I'm sure the companies and their lawyers will one day argue that the little old
    lady dehydrated because of reasons beyond their control: She forgot to pay the bill! But here I will
    assume that water is also unlimited. Visualize this if you wish as a string of efficient filtering stations at the
    shores of every ocean. Sweet water is available to all in the quantities they want. The only one of the three
    vital necessities I will deem to be scarce is food.

    Let’s say that I wave my magic wand and eliminate all that is edible on the planet. There is suddenly no
    more food anywhere. How long would it take the last human to die?

    My guess is that we would first engage in massive cannibalism. The history of extreme situations (Easter
    Island, Donner Party, Whaleship Essex, Holodomor, etc.) [4] confirms that this is the most popular option.
    We will not spend time organizing millions of starving people into collective farms or planting seeds to
    feed the few that might make it to harvest time. We will spend time waiting for someone to die (or
    accelerating the process proactively) so that we can taste them. However, this only postpones the day of
    reckoning for the human race. After a few months, this process guarantees that every member of our
    species is gone. Certainly, if any women survive the upcoming catastrophe, they won't be thinking about
    propagating the race. They'll be content just to live out what's left of their bleak lives.

    The first issue this scenario brings up is a new mechanism for extinction. People repeatedly brainstorm
    the usual agents for the possible extinction of Man – catastrophic accidents, extraterrestrial impacts or
    radiation, disease, nuclear weapons, etc. –  but you will never hear anyone propose that our species
    could massively die of starvation.

    The second thing is that starvation qualifies as a selective, universal mechanism with the potential to
    explain a mass extinction irrespective of epoch or habitat. If horses exclusively eat hay and hyenas
    exclusively eat horses, the day that hay disappears, we should expect hay, horses, and hyenas to
    disappear from the record. The insects crawling under the horses' feet would be unaffected by all the
    commotion upstairs. Climate and environmental change do not have this degree of selectivity.
    Extraterrestrial impacts and catastrophic accidents have no intrinsic ability to discriminate at all.
    Therefore, starvation is more than just a strong candidate to explain mass extinctions, and it is perplexing
    that paleontologists and anthropologists never include it explicitly in their lists as a cause in its own right.

    The relativistic economist points out that my proposal required a magic wand. Unlike the rest of the
    animal world which is at the mercy of nature, humans control the means of production of food. We
    manage our own carrying capacity. We produce as much food as we want. So what's this nonsense
    about massive starvation?

    Here I will show that we need not resort to magic to wipe out food from the planet. I argue that Man has
    control over his carrying capacity only during the demographic expansion phase of post-subsistence
    history. When global population stabilizes or begins to fall, Man reverts to being just like any other
    species and is subject to the standard rules laid down by Mother Nature.
Food:
Mother Nature's
henchman
Stupid fools! The dog and the
human have abundant air and water,
but nothing else. I can at least eat
grass and shrubs, which is all that is
left. So I wonder how these two
bozos plan to survive the next three
days.

I think I'm going
to have horse
meat for lunch!
I guess I'll just  
have to have
horse meat for
lunch!
And above all don't forget
to stock your fridge!