Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by Brometheus » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:25 AM UTC

jxramos wrote: post #50

shmageggy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This paper states this as though it is desirable and inevitable. No it doesn't? Two sentences later: > But modernity has been enabled by the rapid and accelerating expenditure of our one-time inheritance of fossil fuels, and by drawing down the resources and ecosystems of our finite Earth—none of which can be sustained as we transition from a resource-rich frontier to a human-dominated planet.

I still don't fathom this singular deposit of fossil fuels in the earth, are they truly some artifact of a huge die off of living creatures from centuries ago or is there some steady generation through time that replenishes and generates the crude oil beneath our feet? I'd like to learn more about where the fossil in fossil fuels comes from and just what sort of biomass quantity we're talking about and when on earth…

If you're interested in the historical process, personally I like the videos of PBS Eons a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pbs+eons+coal

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

#162

Post by Tade0 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:26 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #130

c54 wrote: post #36

I do think some of the concerns here are right on the nose > What can be done to minimize the chances of colossal failure or sub-systemic breakdown, which in the worst case could threaten preservation of science and human knowledge? It seems like the two extremes are degrowth and malthus on the one hand, and haughty denialist expansionism on the other. One is borderline eugenicist and denies billions of people of our…

This is another issue witha clear age divide. Younger generation is overwhelmingly aware of the problem, but our decisiojn makers have an average age of 70 or some such. Older voters hold more power too. Brexit was overwhelmingly voted for by older people. The west is in crisis because the young peiple are getting shafted at every step, from the housing market to the environment. I love my grandparents, but I would n…

Also when they were young there was just roughly half the people on this planet comparing to today and even fewer enjoying a western standard of living.

I remember when the Chinese were known for cycling to work en masse. Now they're the largest automobile market in the world.

Old people can't imagine what it's like to grow up in such a world.

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

#163

Post by lm28469 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:27 AM UTC

meany wrote: post #98

I think the authors do a disservice to their cause with the inclusion of judgmental, emotional rhetoric such as sentences like: “ From this perspective, it seems likely that future generations will label the past two centuries as the Fossil Fuel Age rather than the Industrial Revolution—emphasizing the critical importance of a now-depleted resource over a self-flattering celebration of human innovation” It suggests t…

It's a fact though, the only emotional people here are the ones who feel threatened by such remarks

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

#164

Post by trashtester » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:28 AM UTC

mellavora wrote: post #122

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #68

Similar things were predicted in the 70s but new sources of energy and improvements in productivity invalidated those predictions. Obviously at some point limits will kick in (unless we can expand to other planets) but what to do about that is more of a political question than a scientific one. I personally think it is more appealing to attempt expanding the limits, as we've done in the past, than to pre-emptively ad…

> Similar things were predicted in the 70s but new sources of energy and improvements in productivity invalidated those predictions. ok, cool. So you've identified the limits (energy and productivity). Are you sure productivity has grown? Is this growth sustainable? For example, agriculture. Highly dependent on rapidly disappearing resources Like i.e. dirt. If you look at erosion rates in the US, we are on track to r…

> For example, agriculture.

I suppose this is not only an example, but probably the most critical type of productivity when determining how big of a population our planet can sustain.

> So have we really achieved long-term (> 100 year) productivity improvements in agriculture?

If you look back over the past 100 years we definitely have. If you look back over the past 60 years, yields of modern agriculture have tripled. Looking forward will always be speculation.

> For example, agriculture. Highly dependent on rapidly disappearing resources Like i.e. dirt.

I'm not disputing that such effects are going on in many places. Still, for productivity not only slow down but to actually go down, you need pretty strong effect sizes for such issues.

> Water. See "US Drought Monitor".

This is a factor that is harder to compensate for by fertilizers and modifications to farming practices. And some locations (possibly the US and even more likely, China) may be hit by this. As temperatures rise, more water is likely to evaporate from the world's oceans, though, and it has to come down somewhere. But that may be elsewhere, such as Central Asia, Canada or the Middle East.

I think part of the issue is how willing we are to increase our energy production. In dry, warm climates, solar is likelty to become quite cheap eventually. In other locations, I believe nuclear is our best bet (though wind is maybe more popular with many). If we're able to produce enough energy, we can produce most of the phosphates, nitrates and even de-salinated water that is needed for farming.

Personally I have relatively high faith that human ingenuity will provide technological answers to most such problems caused by our environment. I have way greater fear that war or similar conflicts may cause us to exterminate each other, or even that some day, AI will take over completely.

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

#165

Post by WHATDOESIT » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:35 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #145

franciscop wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the issue with the balance here is that no matter where you fall on the "climate scale belief" (except probably the most extreme of deniers), people consider anyone that thinks a better future than you is coming will be labelled a denier, while anyone who thinks a worse future than you think is coming is given a soft pass as just having stronger convictions. That unfortunately leaves the vast majority o…

The problem is that _any_ action is criticized as sacrificing prosperity, even though it often just sacrifices the prosperity of a small number of people.

That's the problem of democracy - if it's only those who have to sacrifice who are voting in that particular governing entity, it's never ever going to pass.

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

#166

Post by lm28469 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:42 AM UTC

gandalfgeek wrote: post #54

This kind of Malthusian thinking has a horrible track record. Imagine if we drastically altered the course of technological progress every time a cabal of "experts" declares that we're going to destroy the planet. I'm not arguing that we should be reckless with the environment, but there are massive existential risks to humanity with this kind of self-limiting belief system. It's not obvious that one side of the argu…

> has a horrible track record

care to elaborate ?

> Imagine if we drastically altered the course of technological progress every time a cabal of "experts" declares that we're going to destroy the planet.

Yeah imagine if we did that when petrol producers had internal reports about how much we'd fuck the planet in 50 years. Imagine not entering this era of crazy pollution, unsustainability and war, imagine working on alternative energy sources earlier instead of being under the influence of lobbies, the absolute horror

It made me think of that HN thread from a few weeks ago, people where boasting about their LIDAR enabled autonomous vacuum cleaners, if we stopped making these kinds of useless gadgets the world would suck within a generation ? I think the west grew weak, decades of unsustainable "growth" made their lifestyle degenerate in some kind of "convenience above all" lifestyle, their life is threatened if you take away their daily latte macchiato and their 4k oled tv. Some people really believe that if their amazon same day toilet paper delivery was to disappear the world would crash and burn in a single generation ?

We collectively completely lost our minds, go talk to your grandparents, ask them how life was when their fridge wasn't bluetooth enabled and connected to their apple watch...

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

#167

Post by ehnto » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:44 AM UTC

psychoslave wrote: post #125

ehnto wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The choice isn't even starting from the middle of the spectrum. We already have the foot on the accelerator, and it's unlikely we'll let up with our current generation of leaders. I think we'll continue to pollute at a rate far too great for the planet to handle, and we're going to have to get very good at remediation to continue living here. It will only be once the next generation of leaders comes into power, maybe…

>I think we'll continue to pollute at a rate far too great for the planet to handle, and we're going to have to get very good at remediation to continue living here. The planet will do fine, but even stating such a thing is still commit anthropomorphism. The planet will continue to exist for a long time, no matter what the fate of mankind will be. Even life is most likely to continue prospering in a way or in an othe…

The rocks will be ecstatic to hear this news.

Humans aren't the only species evolved to live in this particular climate, and we won't be the only species impacted by an extreme outcome of climate change. Long term, of course, the planet will survive, and hopefully many species will thrive in our absence. But many will go extinct, and it will have been our fault. On a long enough time scale, sure, nothing matters really, the sun will explode and all our flyer campagins will have been for nothing. But we experience a much smaller timescale, and it'd be great if we gave some thought to not boiling the reefs and setting fire to the koalas while we're here.

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

#168

Post by brutusborn » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:44 AM UTC

ericmcer wrote: post #49

c54 wrote: post #36

I do think some of the concerns here are right on the nose > What can be done to minimize the chances of colossal failure or sub-systemic breakdown, which in the worst case could threaten preservation of science and human knowledge? It seems like the two extremes are degrowth and malthus on the one hand, and haughty denialist expansionism on the other. One is borderline eugenicist and denies billions of people of our…

Do you think we will ever turn back to eugenics? It has deeply immoral roots and has led to some of the most messed up scenarios in our history, but it is also a crazy powerful tool we have been unable to leverage in a non-evil way. (This is kinda tangential but related) I have a weird theory about humanities purpose: Assuming someone/thing created life (if life wasn't created then it truly is random chaos and we hav…

I think we are like fish in a pond, we don't have the cognitive tools to understand complex enough ideas to determine our 'purpose.' Seen in this way, 'purpose' is simply a symbol that represents another cognition, so asking the question 'what is our purpose?' is essentially meaningless (like a circular definition). I have been influenced a lot by Taoism and Zen Buddhism in particular, where the focus is less on answers to questions, but contemplating the phenomena of the questions themselves.

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

#169

Post by seydor » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:49 AM UTC

brutusborn wrote: post #155

seydor wrote: post #120

Without competition you don't have a market. You don't even have political discourse. You have centralized, planned economy and society, clearly defined 'optima', in which the academics have all the power. I think this should be added to the discussion section as there is an obvious conflict of interest here. Maybe we shoulkd have a world without power instead ...

I think this is covered in the supplement, 4. Economics, f) Free market... I would agree that competition in some form is essential, but we must also be mindful of issues with competition such as market failures.

That says nothing about power or about academia itself. The whole supplement is a "list of superficial assertions we hold to be true even though we have no idea if they are", that are typical political anti-capitalist rhetoric

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

#170

Post by lm28469 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:51 AM UTC

aeternum wrote: post #21

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.

Also if we really value life, we should probably optimize for total lives lived. The universe will not last forever and entire galaxies are being lost to both the cosmic horizon and blackholes at an alarming rate. For some reason Earth seems to be the only planet with life, so every second we spend without making life interplanetary we are snuffing out an unfathomable number of future human and animal lives.

Nothing guarantees we're on a path that leads to that. We might very well be the proverbial frog being boiled alive

People think that all new tech = progress = we'll have star trek at some point.

Don't forget all these things are sci-fi, 101% sci-fi, for now all we did is put a few dozen dudes a few hundred thousand miles from earth inside tiny ass metal cans.

Some people apparently think it's easier to terraform Mars than keep our home planet clean. One being a dead rock, the other being a planet we evolved to thrive on for the last few billions years that we half way fucked up after 200 years of industrial "progress"