Are we running out of resources? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#151

Post by anamax » Mon, Apr 04, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

verisimi wrote: post #33

simonh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the wealth of billionaires is not cash, it’s locked up in their ownership of the companies they control. Elon Musk for example has 99% of his wealth in shares in Tesla, SpaceX etc. The only way to take that off him is to take those companies away and give control of them to someone else. It’s the same for Warren Buffett, the vast majority of his wealth is in ownership and control via BH. He sells some of that…

> Most of the wealth of billionaires is not cash, it’s locked up in their ownership of the companies they control. Elon Musk for example has 99% of his wealth in shares in Tesla, SpaceX etc. Yes. But its possible to allocate a value to these assets. The point I'm making is that it if we are trying to find a solution to these problems, the easiest one would be to take the billions in wealth - more wealth that can be s…

> The point I'm making is that it if we are trying to find a solution to these problems, the easiest one would be to take the billions in wealth - more wealth that can be spent in hundreds of lifetimes - away from the people who hold it and redistribute it to those who don't.

After you take that stock, who do you sell it to? (Simply confiscating it doesn't move resources around.) What are they not buying so they can buy this stock? More to the point, why are they going to buy that stock if they're not buying it today.

I could buy Amazon, SpaceX, Facebook, Google, stock but don't. Under this system, AWS will be less expensive but what are the odds that it will appreciate significantly? I ask because I buy stock to make money.

Who is better off if I buy SpaceX instead of living on that money while I work on my startup? (If I buy said stock, I'll need to get a job to cover living expenses. Maybe that stock will go up in value so I can live off it later, but I'm eating this week.)

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#152

Post by fennecfoxen » Mon, Apr 04, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

f1yght wrote: post #85

fennecfoxen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rail transportation in particular. ahem bus rapid transit

BRT is still reliant on using roads that cars are on and even if it were electric, requires recharging (Unless it's on a wire). So rail in this instance makes more sense as you get cars out of the way and you wouldn't need to charge it. If it's on a guided wire might as well make it a rail.

> BRT is still reliant on using roads that cars are on

no no no no NO. The whole point of it being Bus Rapid Transit (as opposed to just a series of buses) is that it ISN'T just using the same roads that cars are on.

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#153

Post by valenterry » Mon, Apr 04, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #23

verisimi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we should petition the governance structure to create a maximum threshold of 10 million dollars per person. Sure, billionares will lose much of their wealth, and will try to hide in off shore funds (even more so than they do at present) but we can legislate for this and de-anonymise the wealth. We would then collapse those off shore legal structures, allocate the wealth to individuals, and apply the 10m limit…

Most of the wealth of billionaires is not cash, it’s locked up in their ownership of the companies they control. Elon Musk for example has 99% of his wealth in shares in Tesla, SpaceX etc. The only way to take that off him is to take those companies away and give control of them to someone else. It’s the same for Warren Buffett, the vast majority of his wealth is in ownership and control via BH. He sells some of that…

It would be possible to have people keep control but still have everyone benefit - not all shares have to be the same, as we can see with Facebook.

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#154

Post by valenterry » Mon, Apr 04, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

verisimi wrote: post #33

simonh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the wealth of billionaires is not cash, it’s locked up in their ownership of the companies they control. Elon Musk for example has 99% of his wealth in shares in Tesla, SpaceX etc. The only way to take that off him is to take those companies away and give control of them to someone else. It’s the same for Warren Buffett, the vast majority of his wealth is in ownership and control via BH. He sells some of that…

> Most of the wealth of billionaires is not cash, it’s locked up in their ownership of the companies they control. Elon Musk for example has 99% of his wealth in shares in Tesla, SpaceX etc. Yes. But its possible to allocate a value to these assets. The point I'm making is that it if we are trying to find a solution to these problems, the easiest one would be to take the billions in wealth - more wealth that can be s…

You are making a mistake here though. Avoid thinking about the wealth to distribute! Because that doesn't work. As was already said, you can't take all stocks and sell them, because no one can then buy them.

Rather think about money flows. How much money does e.g. Musk consume? Probably much more than the everage person. But will it be a significant boost to everyone's quality of life if Musk out only consumes as much as the average and donates the rest? Probably not.

There more interesting part is his power and what he does with his money. But that's a totally different point.

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#155

Post by TuringTest » Mon, Apr 04, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

verisimi wrote: post #123

TuringTest wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we are infinitely resourceful and capable of re-imagining and re-engineering our environment - in a good way! > But the problem we face is vested interests and the institutions they have captured. The second sentence contradicts the first one.

It doesn't. If you leave people to it, and people need something, someone will come along and offer a solution for a price. But if you have a vested interest, they will want government legislation to prevent alternative solutions. Now people who have an idea face legal repercussions fines, jail, etc if they try to offer a solution. This is the case in many industries, from taxis, to rubbish collection, to banking, to…

So you're saying that we're are infinitely resourceful and capable of re-imagining and re-engineering our environment, were it not for other people who can prevent it?

Where's the infinite resourcefulness and infinite capability in that?

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#156

Post by azornathogron » Mon, Apr 04, 2022, 11:50 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #66

IHLayman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Our ever increasing population and consumption will cause the price of energy and materials to increase as the low-hanging fruit is picked. > This appears to be wrong. Population growth is inexorably declining, and with renewables charging hard energy prices are going to be declining, not increasing. I don’t agree with all of the article’s premises but this is not wrong. Population is still increasing, even if pop…

Population is continuing to grow, but that's because of demographic momentum as population age structure relaxes toward equilibrium (with fewer young people and more older people, particularly older people past their reproductive years.) The long term problem will be population decline as the total fertility rate drops well below replacement. Energy use is going up, because lesser developed countries are heading towa…

Why would population decline be a problem?

If doomsday predictions about population growth are to be dismissed because technology has always kept up with the increasing needs of humanity, what is the argument against technology keeping up with the needs of a demographically shifted smaller population?

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#157

Post by mxkopy » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 12:34 AM UTC

wly_cdgr wrote: post #35

jacknews wrote: post #24

I don't think we should strive to remake the galaxy for human comfort and desires, but instead strive to remake ourselves, to be better suited to the environments we inhabit.

I disagree. I think we should definitely try to remake not just our galaxy but the universe for our comfort and desires

It may be the case that if we do this, the universe in the long term will become increasingly hostile to our inhabitation.

Maybe our wants, pleasures, ideas of how the universe should be, don't make any sense in the context of physical reality, just like moving at 1 billion m/s relative to a stationary observer doesn't make any sense in the context of physical reality.

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#158

Post by ericmay » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 12:42 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #145

ericmay wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This doesn't happen when you're paid subsistence wages, which sweatshop workers are How did any country ever become wealthy? The US and UK for example went through the Industrial Revolution too, where people were paid subsistence wages and worked in sweatshops...

> The US and UK for example went through the Industrial Revolution too, where people were paid subsistence wages and worked in sweatshops... Then they had mass, deadly, pro- and anti-labor violence culminating in various labor protections which resulted in a less-miserable distribution of the rewards of industry, a process which has been interspersed with backsliding and repetition over time.

Right and so then they became less poor afterward.

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#159

Post by jotm » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 1:17 AM UTC

alach11 wrote: post #133

jotm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saltwater, meet sun and remineralization. And really, $1 is too expensive? How much do you need? I use ~10m3/month during summer for myself and a small garden. If you use more, well, [thread title]. Smh, talking about resources running out and changing lifestyle. But yeah, those further inland will have more trouble.

You use far more than that. The vast majority of water you “consume” is in the production of the food you eat, especially meat.

Oh yeah, you're right. I completely forgot.

Re: Are we running out of resources?

#160

Post by throwaway6532 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 1:21 AM UTC

azornathogron wrote: post #156

pfdietz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population is continuing to grow, but that's because of demographic momentum as population age structure relaxes toward equilibrium (with fewer young people and more older people, particularly older people past their reproductive years.) The long term problem will be population decline as the total fertility rate drops well below replacement. Energy use is going up, because lesser developed countries are heading towa…

Why would population decline be a problem? If doomsday predictions about population growth are to be dismissed because technology has always kept up with the increasing needs of humanity, what is the argument against technology keeping up with the needs of a demographically shifted smaller population?

>Why would population decline be a problem? If doomsday predictions about population growth are to be dismissed because technology has always kept up with the increasing needs of humanity, what is the argument against technology keeping up with the needs of a demographically shifted smaller population?

Is there not an aggregate level of people required to sustain the complexity of the technology required to keep all of it functioning below which critical links in the chain begin failing causing a chain reaction where it all completely breaks down?

Am I alone in thinking that? It's mildly obvious if you do a thought experiment where you reduce the population down to a ridiculously small number you can see such a scenario is indeed possible. The question is where exactly is that threshold?

I live in New Zealand and a good example of a weak link in the chain that got exposed by Covid when we completely shut our borders was that we couldn't get the seasonal workers required to operate some of the high tech farm equipment required for harvesting. I recall seeing on the news members of industry and government saying "it's not simply a case of just trying to hire more people locally as these machines are not simple to operate and require specific skills that take a non-trivial amount of time to train up on" etc. So, as we increase the complexity of the technology in order to boost productivity outputs it makes the system more and more fragile to such shocks. So, if we're relying on future technology we're by definition relying on even greater complexity meaning that critical threshold of people needed to maintain it goes up, which is a problem if the population is going down.