h a l f b a k e r yExpensive, difficult, slightly dangerous, not particularly effective... I'm on a roll.
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Hyperpygmytize humans
humans dwarfed to 1/10th size would give time for dealing with the population crisis | |
Create and spread a virus that only infects humans, inducing tenfold dwarfing/pygmytization. It would be like we landed on a planet ten-times bigger than earth, and we wouldn't fit into our obselete technologies like cars, etc. Great launching pad for a quantum leap in technology, and we would need a
tenth the limited resources we have now, or less, with more advanced tech.
[link]
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Problem - we might get beat up and beat out by meercats. |
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OK, let's deal with the major problems one by one. |
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//Create and spread a virus that only infects humans, // |
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A virus couldn't cause Hyperpygmytization without
causing horrible, excruciating, and extremely
dangerous related health effects that would probably
kill half of us right off. Also 1/10 the size doesn't
mean 1/10 the energy usage. |
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This idea is bizarre and could wipe out the entire
human race. (+) |
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Yeah but we'd be wiped out by housecats which would be a bit too embarassing. [-] |
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I think there's a Twilight Zone or Doomwatch episode or something which has this in it but i can't pinpoint the exact series. It was in the early 'seventies. |
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What occurs immediately is the problems small people, for example children, have as a result of their size, namely higher relative viscosity of body fluids, the tendency for pathological change to spread more quickly and the higher surface area to volume ratio, leading to such effects as less effective temperature control, greater susceptibility to dehydration and the like. |
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Forgive me. I'm about to express myself in a way which may raise the hackles of metaphysical naturalists. This is because i can't find a way of wording it more neutrally, but i do believe there's a way of restating it. |
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In the case of paediatrics, there's a compensatory greater vitality which enables children to deal with potential problems more quickly. Adults are more susceptible to entropy as a factor in pathology than children. Therefore an adult the same size as a small child would be more vulnerable. |
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Another problem is the size of the brain. |
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An adult the size of a small child would effectively have cystic fibrosis, be susceptible to heat stroke and hypothermia and have to eat a hell of a lot constantly. |
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Now i have a question. Clearly there are some very small mammals about. How do they deal with the viscosity problem? Is their mucus, for example, essentially different, for example is it less salty? I've long wondered about this. |
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Isn't this how you get the tiny people who live inside the television ? |
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Smaller mammals tend to have faster metabolisms, which provides more waste heat to regulate hypothermia. They also dump heat faster becuase of the lower volume to surface area ratio, which keeps them from hyperthermia. This does mean that they eat a much higher calorie/body mass diet. It also means they tend to live shorter lives and mature more quickly. |
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Not really sure about the cystic fibrosis bit, it probably is a matter of different mucus mixtures. |
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/we'd be wiped out by housecats/
I think this would have to be something gradual. Or an evolutionary bottleneck - like on a colony ship. The new babies would be tiny. There is no good way to get rid of all that bone and meat on an adult. Since the generation of biggies would be raising the smallies, we could equip them with small firearms to help with the housecats. |
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re susceptible to entropy - yes that is hard to comprehend. The relationship of body size to environment is enigmatic for lots of critters but for humans I think cultural adaptations make body size diversity largely irrelevant. |
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Paediatric pathology really does quite often depend on the relative viscosity of fluids. Examples are asthma and whooping cough. |
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A smaller human adult would certainly need to have faster metabolism, and clearly that's also true of children, in the same environment, but i think they'd also have to be hairy, "obese" or have different body proportions in order to reduce surface area. I'm not sure right now, but i think there'd probably have to be quite a redesign of the digestive system to provide enough energy to make that possible. Also, babies would be even smaller and would still have to survive. I'm imagining humans of what i'm thinking of as a tenth of their current mass, which scaled down in proportion would make them around eighty cm tall as adults. Some adults are that short but i think they tend to have health problems like pneumonia. |
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I suppose the ambient temperature could be kept near body temperature, but then other problems would emerge such as dehydration. I would expect a short lifespan too. That would mean less time for education and experience. |
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Extremely small people (like He Pingping) weigh (or in his
case, weighed) less than 10kg, which is about a tenth the
weight of an average person. |
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These people often suffer from a variety of problems, but
not always. It's also not clear if all of these problems arise
from their size alone, or are an independent consequence
of the other effects of the genetic problems that caused
their shortness. |
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On the other hand, finding shoes without cartoon motifs
on them would be a problem. |
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You are right [Max...] think of the cobblers and shoe makers, how long would they last... |
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Hyperpygmytized people couldn't reach the cookies on the top shelf, and without cookies we'd be miserable. fishbone. |
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Then again, for a 10kg human, "Death by Chocolate" is a much
more economically viable option, so [+]. |
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