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Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

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Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#81

Post by dreadlordbone »

diputsmonro wrote: post #74
ch4s3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ultimately a humanist set of values that lead to that conclusion. If we value human happiness we should try to make as much of that as possible.

Sure, but more lives doesn't mean a net increase in happiness. A trillion people who live in the edge of starvation are probably less happy overall than a few billion who are well fed. I mean, what's the point if being a humanist of you don't care about the human?

Except starvation has gone down and quality of life has gone up for the large majority of the human population. Where are you coming from with "a trillion people who live in the edge of starvation"? Some assumed doomsday situation?

Not to be a buzz kill but things have been getting better.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#82

Post by throwawaylinux »

spullara wrote: post #39
throwawaylinux wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth, they'll probably continue do fine, as they have since their population leveled out 30 years ago. The doomsday predictions haven't just started now, and they weren't only about events in 2060. They started decades ago about population growth slowing, population leveling, population dropping. They've been pretty consistently wrong.

I mean they have been in a state of continuous deflation for a long time. They certainly didn't live up to the 1980s predictions of world domination.

What do you mean, you mean that?

Predictions of world domination were equally the same kind of substance-free propaganda and fear mongering. No serious people actually thought a country of ~100 million would economically dominate the world.

Nor was not achieving world domination wasn't the anti-sustainable-population propaganda fearmongering of the 90s and 0s that I'm talking about, so I don't know what part of my comment you're trying to respond to.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#84

Post by actually_a_dog »

dreadlordbone wrote: post #81
diputsmonro wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but more lives doesn't mean a net increase in happiness. A trillion people who live in the edge of starvation are probably less happy overall than a few billion who are well fed. I mean, what's the point if being a humanist of you don't care about the human?

Except starvation has gone down and quality of life has gone up for the large majority of the human population. Where are you coming from with "a trillion people who live in the edge of starvation"? Some assumed doomsday situation? Not to be a buzz kill but things have been getting better.

> Not to be a buzz kill but things have been getting better.

Past performance does not guarantee future results. In fact, what this article is saying is that mathematically, our future results are practically guaranteed to be worse than they have been in the past. I don't find your comment at all persuasive because you have not even attempted to grapple with this issue presented in the article.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#85

Post by honkler »

alexnewman wrote: post #6
ouid wrote: post #3

>infinite exponential growth which is impossible on a finite planet. its impossible in any space with non negative curvature. the kind of growth that is unsustainable in a finite region is any growth at all.

constant growth != infinite growth constant growth just means converging growth if the population is shrinking all we need to do is increase gdp per capita.

population cannot shrink forever

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#86

Post by honkler »

pdonis wrote: post #71
gnramires wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. There are resource limits, unfortunately (I guess?). Thermodynamics is a hard limit. There are many soft limits as well. Please look at this paper for an incredibly well researched physics-based review: (to appear in Nature Physics) https://tmurphy.physics.ucsd.edu/papers/limits-econ-final.pd...

Of course if you assume continued exponential growth you will run into limits. The correct response to that is to not assume continued exponential growth indefinitely, since in the real world that never happens. In actual real world systems, the growth curve is sigmoidal: it starts out with exponential growth, becomes linear, then asymptotically flattens as system constraints are approached. This is already happening…

wrong. As system constraints are reached, growth becomes negative. In other words, you need a steady supply of resources just to maintain existing stuff.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#87

Post by adastra22 »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #79
adastra22 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diamond-based molecular nanotechnology, combined with fusion and high efficiency solar as sources of power will make all of our technology and infrastructure carbon sinks. By the end of this century I expect we will be concerned about CO2 going too low and causing a glacial period. PS Mercury is too far in-system to be that useful. It takes less energy to get to/from the outer planets than it does Mercury. The cold t…

You have suggested in the same comment that somehow we will have nearly limitless carbon-negative energy but also that the amount of energy to get to Mercury is too high to make the trip worth it. This does not follow from the initial assumption.

Why spend X/kg to get something from mercury when you could spend 1/4 or 1/8 as much to get it from the asteroid belt?

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#88

Post by adastra22 »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #73
gnramires wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the article, actually about 100-1000 times beyond current capacities. In a way I agree that the feasible limits, even on Earth, may be orders of magnitude larger (say, in terms of population, perhaps) than we currently have. But the current rate of growth in any case is probably unsustainable because of imbalances like co2 emissions. I do think it's feasible to change to renewable energy in the short term, if onl…

> co2 emissions The ironic thing is that some of the earth's most fertile periods were associated with high levels of co2. Because co2 reduces plant need for water, reduces desertification, and massively increases the food supply. Given that solar power beaming is technologically feasible and practical, it is likely that the future will not be power limited like we are today.

The ideal setup is probably CO2 levels quite a bit higher than today’s, but with a sunshade filtering out UV-B wavelengths. All of earth would be habitable, but without major weather swings.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#89

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ch4s3 wrote: post #45
junon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of a selfish viewpoint to take, is it not? I mean I don't necessarily disagree with you, just... the reasoning seems strange to me.

It’s ultimately a humanist set of values that lead to that conclusion. If we value human happiness we should try to make as much of that as possible.

Honestly I only care about the happiness of humans that actually exist. The theoretical happiness of humans that were never born concerns me not even a little.

Re: Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future

#90

Post by throwawaylinux »

fomine3 wrote: post #58
throwawaylinux wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite all the fearmongering and wailing and gnashing of teeth, Japan is doing okay with a shrinking population.

There are SERIOUS problem expected to come, primary for working population, pension, and national insurance. Some are delayed thanks to huge national debt. Demographics is really good indicator for the future, but it's hard to improve.

30 years ago there were SERIOUS problems expected to come. The doomsayers were all just comprehensively wrong, there's just no fearmongering your way around that. Japan is a stable and prosperous society that's not significantly worse off than the best and richest countries in the world. On the contrary it's right up the top of many metrics.

It's funny, still today it has like 4x the GDP per capita of China and yet hearing it from these propagandists^Weconomists you'd think China is some kind of futuristic wonderland where everything turns to gold and Japan is a crumbling wasteland (or soon will be.... aaaany day now, for the past 30 years).

Japan's got issues, every country does. You think the US or Europe don't face serious economic problems in the next 40 years? As populations around the world peak and resource extraction and primary production peak, cheap fossil fuels are phased out, everybody's chickens will be coming home to roost. That's not a Japan problem, that's everyone's problem. Rich countries like Japan have a lot of room to cut expenditure and raise revenue. They don't because it's not popular, but they can and will (have to).

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