Ecological Wealth of Nations • Hacker News Board

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#31

Post by cubano » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:10 PM UTC

rplnt wrote: post #14

devy wrote: post #7

So what are the real options of survival? a) accelerate migration to Mars b) population control? Anything else we can do to prevent "fucked"?

A friend of mine is a big advocate of space habitats. Apparently they are far superior to Mars as a place where we could expand in foreseeable future. Maybe someone knowledgeable could chime in?

> A friend of mine is a big advocate of space habitats. Apparently they are far superior to Mars...

Interesting...did he work at NASA working with real space habitats? I was a summer hire at NASA many moons ago in the medical/habitat programs and there sure wasn't much their that looked superior to anything.

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#32

Post by eudox » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

legulere wrote: post #13

exratione wrote: post #8

The fundamental problem with Malthusianism is that it is static thinking. It projects on the basis of no change in technology, as if the present moment continues eternally. This is why all statements to date on running out of X or Y at time T in the future have proven false. What actually happens is that people look ahead, forecast increased prices for X, and then the more adventurous go and build a better way of get…

The problem with your argument is that it assumes technical progress continuing eternally. For instance Malthus himself was mostly preoccupied with the idea, that the population might increase faster than the agricultural output. Through the use of chemical fertilizers there has been a breakthrough in how much food we can produce, so the malthusan catastrophe was averted. Agricultural output is still growing, but the…

>Agricultural output is still growing, but there are physical limits.

And people frequently confuse engineering limits with physical limits.

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#33

Post by eudox » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:17 PM UTC

schallertd wrote: post #20

I'm pretty sick of all that hype around Tesla for example, pretending to be the real solution for independence of oil and gas. That is simply not the case. Tesla hasn't solved any of those issues so far, they only shifted the problem once again. Of course they design very beautiful electronic cars, but this isn't a solution for our energy and resource problem either.

>they only shifted the problem once again

Shifting the problem is a sometimes a good thing.

In this case, because it means the energy can now come from effective sources (nuclear) instead of carrying petrochemicals in the vehicle.

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#34

Post by miloshadzic » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:18 PM UTC

"Ideal" growth of an economy is 3%. Growth takes resources(fossil fuels, ore, etc). Compound growth takes more and more resources over the whole planet. Free market fundamentalism means we're not investing so heavily into alternative sources but burning what we've got. Compound that 3% and it's just a metter when we'll be fucked unless things change a lot.

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#35

Post by eudox » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:18 PM UTC

>Singapore: 16000%

So the takeaway from this is you should aim for high biocapacity deficit, right?

I mean, I live in a deep green country, and it's a filthy dump.

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#36

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:19 PM UTC

devy wrote: post #7

So what are the real options of survival? a) accelerate migration to Mars b) population control? Anything else we can do to prevent "fucked"?

Migration to Mars would require such an enourmous amount of energy that it would make the problem worse - each person moved to Mars would use far more than an average Western lifetime's worth of energy in the move.

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#37

Post by badminton1 » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

devy wrote: post #7

So what are the real options of survival? a) accelerate migration to Mars b) population control? Anything else we can do to prevent "fucked"?

Venus might be more survivable than Mars, just not on the surface. It is also closer.

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#38

Post by Kenji » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:27 PM UTC

exratione wrote: post #8

The fundamental problem with Malthusianism is that it is static thinking. It projects on the basis of no change in technology, as if the present moment continues eternally. This is why all statements to date on running out of X or Y at time T in the future have proven false. What actually happens is that people look ahead, forecast increased prices for X, and then the more adventurous go and build a better way of get…

The single most reasonable comment to this submission and it has been voted to the bottom. Can't upvote it enough, it's actually a shame for HN.

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#39

Post by jylam » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:33 PM UTC

miloshadzic wrote: post #34

"Ideal" growth of an economy is 3%. Growth takes resources(fossil fuels, ore, etc). Compound growth takes more and more resources over the whole planet. Free market fundamentalism means we're not investing so heavily into alternative sources but burning what we've got. Compound that 3% and it's just a metter when we'll be fucked unless things change a lot.

> "Ideal" growth of an economy is 3%

Would you mind to source and explain that ?

Re: Ecological Wealth of Nations

#40

Post by redthrow » Mon, Aug 08, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

eudox wrote: post #35

>Singapore: 16000% So the takeaway from this is you should aim for high biocapacity deficit, right? I mean, I live in a deep green country, and it's a filthy dump.

That's my take away too. I won't name names but there are a lot of "ecologically wealthy" countries that nobody in the right mind wants to live.

People should aim for maximum human flourishing, not minimising human impact on the planet.