all disappear if we reduce human population to < 100 million

OK, you go first.

Oh wait, it's only OTHER people who are the virus that need to be destroyed.

No, it's more accurate to state that some percentage of environmentalists are malthusians. Or, that malthunianism is simply one "path" of many to environmentalist views. I prefer to base views on fact and science. I'd like to keep a healthy "environment" and decent amounts of "nature" simply because it raises our quality of life, however, so does agriculture, but I think we could find a healthy balance if we worked harder at the "science" part. I think the earth can support 10 billion + and I'd be happy to see that many people, more even. But questions like whether or not global warming is occurring and the effects of that, that's a question of fact/science.

Because we wouldn't want starving masses to revolt against the corporate-welfare-enriched 0.1% .. gotta keep peasants satiated with bread and circuses or they tend to revolt.

Your argument is exactly what they used to say about why apartheid was needed, and also why they justified dictatorial policing - and it was very effective, as like New York, apartheid South Africa had very low crime rates and bragged about how "safe" it was while violating everyone's rights. I think it was Martin Luther King who said some powerful words about not confusing the presence of *order* with the presence of *justice*.

I understand the police want to keep safe but they also have a duty to uphold the constitution, and the way stop and frisk is implemented is a due process violation (and racist). Maybe there would be less hostility toward the police if the police thus weren't singling out and violating due process rights of brown people.

Huh wtf? I'm just saying it's much more of an engineering challenge to launch rockets into space if you're an underwater species than a land-dwelling species - that's a plain straightforward fact, there is nothing even controversial about such a statement. Did you reply to the wrong comment? Nothing you said makes any sense as a reply to what I wrote. Or am I feeding a troll? Yeah, more likely.

Maybe 1.2 million would be more realistic.

Smartphone sales in India for 2014 alone will be around 225 million (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/13/smartphone-explosion-2014-india-us-china-firefoxos-android) ... but yeah, whatever.

These people likely don't know what smartphones are

Wow, good to know stone-age ignorance is alive and well still. Are you trolling or genuinely 'that ignorant'?

"India Has Higher Smartphone Usage Than the US: Study"

"Smartphone users in the country have among the highest rates of smartphone usage daily globally, spending over three hours on an average on their devices" - http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobile...

"Smartphone explosion in 2014 will see ownership in India pass US " ... "Phone users in India and China will together buy more than 500m smartphones in 2014, comprising half of the total that will be sold in 47 key countries" - http://www.theguardian.com/tec...

But yeah, those primitive brown won't even know what a smartphone is hurr hurr

It does seem more "intuitive", however, scientific research continually reveals findings that run contrary to our intuition; we don't actually know enough about the mechanisms for the genesis of life to actually say one way or the other if this is true. What you have is a hypothesis - one that needs more research - this is actually an interesting area of active research. Perhaps "harsh" environments are exactly what's needed to create sufficient 'chemical turmoil' and the driving selection mechanisms.

I actually suspect that the majority of life - and intelligent life - in the universe is probably ocean-based. If ever space aliens visit us, unlike the movies, I suspect their spaceships may be more likely to be like sealed aquariums than an air-breathing setup. I've never seen this idea reflected in science fiction though.

I think it may also partly explain why we haven't seen evidence of other intelligent life (so-called Fermi paradox, though I place little stock in that "paradox") - it's probably more difficult for ocean-based alien civilizations to have space programs.

Yeah, and 99% goes to Google, and a few cents to the website developers so they can just just keep the lights on.

@"Think of it less as a way to avoid ads, more of a way for your favourite sites to stay in business."

The problem with this though is that, while in principle true, websites are struggling to 'stay in business' from ads because AdSense payouts are a tiny pittance, Google takes the lion's share for their greedy selves ... I suspect that this Google Contributor thing will be the same. Watch what the payout percentages will be - I bet only a TINY percent will go to the website developer, and Google will get fatter and richer.

@"I want my favorite websites to actually get money"

The reason our favorite websites are struggling to get by with advertising is that advertisers like Google - who are effectively just the "middlemen" between advertisers and publishers - take like 95% and a tiny percent only goes to the publisher, for most websites it's barely enough to even keep the lights on. Google are reaping massive profits from the advertisers, while the actual publishers who develop the content are struggling. It's the classic "monopoly middleman" business model.

Somehow I expect that with this Google Contributor thing, it's going to be equally disproportionate - Google again have an opportunity to reap a huge percent and give only scraps to the actual website/content developers whose backs they ride on.

The real problem with the advertising model today, I think, is that the publishers are getting almost nothing and the "advertising middlemen" (e.g. Google) are reaping massively high profit margins from the advertisers. The poor website developers are getting almost nothing, Google gets the lion's share, and very very healthy financials.

I would happily pay $1-3 per month for an ad-free but publishers-making-money web

But I wonder how much of that would really go to the publisher? If it's like their advertising model, then if we're lucky maybe 10% and Google takes 90%?

This is just a fancy recruitment test

I don't think I've missed the point, as I'm saying the same thing - I just think it's a lousy way to do recruitment. Analogy time: Say you want to hire a sex worker. Here are two methods:

1. Go find one that looks reasonable, initiate a negotiation. If you can find a mutually agreeable rate, hire her, otherwise continue looking for another one.

2. Issue a "challenge" to all sex workers. Declare that every day for the next 30 days, every applicant must give you a free blow job. At the end of the 30 days you will declare a grand "winner", paying the best one $500.

The difference between this analogy and the programmer challenge is that no sex worker would fall for the latter scenario.