The 70 Online Databases that Define Our Planet

Do you have any sites that you feel should be on the list?

well... imho, the purpose of the simulation would be to improve the aim of humanity at certain goals.

What are those goals? (ie political party platforms, corporate policy statements, etc) and what constitutes the feedback loop? (other than cr4?)

Chris

Simulating a process in real time is impossible; data gathering and processing introduce a time delay. Is this from the Euro-smoking-Zone?

The 70 databases? Why not 69, 72, or some other spongy number? Or did some septuagint fanciers get hold of this notion?

the project is loopy

I think the databases are cool

Aw, now you're gonna make me go look at some of them, and no doubt there will be some cool ones....

knowledge may have been power at one time and to a certain extent it still is..but the real beauty of living at this time as a member of the human race is the opportunity to see actual communication amongst our race happening at an increasingly breath taking rate..with the concomitant yearning of all(perhaps many) to move into that heady stream of a promising life for all members of our race and a planet rewarding our group interplay with continued abundance of air/water/nourishment/long fullfilling lives and perhaps our seeds will spread knowingly throughout the stars in the not that far off future...Of course it could go the other way just as quickly..

The one glaring problem which seems to be ignored by politicians, is the rapidly approaching overpopulation of the Earth by Human beings. The world problems are glaringly obvious, so the only real use of such a planet wide simulation is for an elite (European??) dictatorship to control people.

If useful information could be got from the system, who would be able to use it? and who would (or would not) accept it's use? It brings to mind an international dictorship. It looks like another massive waste of money.

It seems to me that our future may depend on several things, such as Human nature, and nature itself (natural disasters, disease etc). There appears no individual willingness to act to protect the future of Mankind.

Rapidly approaching? In my opinion it happened quite a few years ago!

If I had had children, they would now be approaching 50 years old, but I didn't have any because I thought the world was overpopulated then...

It's a very tricky problem, exacerbated by culture, religion, politics, and economic systems based on growth. Even when growth is controlled there still are problems, like the one child policy in China, which has lead to an imbalance between the numbers of men and women. Education clearly helps, but I'm afraid mankind as a whole will wait until natural disasters do the job.

You and I are little different in age, dkwarner. While I admit to going a little "soft" on my 'approaching', I feel you may have gone a little soft on your 'exacerbated' by culture, religion, politics, and economic systems!

I agree entirely with what you say. There was nothing wrong with the Chinese one child policy, except that the requirements of old age in China 'forced' an imbalance in gender. Economic interests vested in growth will have no incentive for population control - the system is flawed, and greed has taken over from fairness and value. Human nature "shines" through in both of these examples!

Only 70 databases will not give a true picture of what is needed - in fact, the first diagram gives the game away immediately. It shows human interaction with the planet as a triangle completely within the sphere of the planet, but with no indication that anything outwith the triangle is to be taken into account. What this system misses is probably more likely to cause us problems than the relatively small amount of data to be collected, and the reaction to collected data which has been influenced by these other occurrences may well be counter-productive.