Other civilizations in the Milky Way?

[Swift]

This discussion seems to be edging into some forbidden topics.

Discussions of hypothetical extraterrestrial civilizations are fine. Historic examples of Earth civilizations, particularly as they relate to the rise and fall of civilizations are fine. Even non-specific examples from the present Earth may be fine.

But some of the comments seem to be on what current Earth governments should be doing about specific, current Earth issues, and that is not fine, that is getting into politics. Please try to avoid any such comments.

I also notice some heat in some of the comments and I would ask that people remember to keep it polite.

Thanks

[Ara Pacis]

The government's role ...

I don't think I can respond to this per Swift, but I hope it's okay to point out that different countries have different access to resources. The US uses a lot of resources and imports a lot of resources, but it also has a lot of resources, especially the most three most important, food, energy, and industrial.

Yes, but the main reason consumption has become a threat is that the population is huge. Think of it this way; how do you define "over-consumption" except as a level of per captia consumption that cannot sustained for the given population?

I define it as using more than is strictly necessary. The debate is over what is necessary, not only in regards to survival/subsistence, but to "quality of life". So, this is also about what is the appropriate quality of life. Some might say individual-transportation but others will say mass-transit, and for the former some will say bicycles while others may say cars.

You missed my point...

No, I just disagree. There are different methods of conflict resolution. I'm not making a value judgement. I'm just saying that both collaboration and confrontation can be effective and rational responses (see prisoner's dilemma).