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Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#61

Post by imgabe »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #55
imgabe wrote: post #18

> there's no way of our GDP keeps growing indefinitely while reducing our ecological footprint. Yes there is. We are vastly ineffecient with our use of energy. Fusion power, better use of solar, wind, geothermal power, better energy storage. The amount of solar hitting the Earth every day is several orders of magnitude larger than what is needed to run society at our current level. There is no shortage of energy, onl…

The indefinite growth theory is discussed in this chance meeting of an economist and a physicist. "Alright, the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that’s via (infrared) radiation. We understand the phenomenon perfectly well, and can predict the surface temperature of the planet as a function of how much energy the human race produces. The upshot is that at a 2.3% growth rate, we would reach…

Not all methods of using energy require releasing heat to space. Solar energy uses heat and light that comes in from space and converts some portion of it to useful work, reducing the amount of heat that needs to be released to space.

That also ignores the fact that technology gets more efficient. A laptop today uses 50W and is thousands of times more powerful than a roomful of computers 50 years ago that used thousands of watts. It’s doing much more and releasing a fraction of the heat.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#62

Post by midoridensha »

imgabe wrote: post #61
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The indefinite growth theory is discussed in this chance meeting of an economist and a physicist. "Alright, the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that’s via (infrared) radiation. We understand the phenomenon perfectly well, and can predict the surface temperature of the planet as a function of how much energy the human race produces. The upshot is that at a 2.3% growth rate, we would reach…

Not all methods of using energy require releasing heat to space. Solar energy uses heat and light that comes in from space and converts some portion of it to useful work, reducing the amount of heat that needs to be released to space. That also ignores the fact that technology gets more efficient. A laptop today uses 50W and is thousands of times more powerful than a roomful of computers 50 years ago that used thousa…

Same with wind energy: wind is ultimately created by solar energy heating the atmosphere, so wind turbines are simply removing some energy from the atmosphere and converting it to useful work.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#64

Post by midoridensha »

Archelaos wrote: post #24

> there's no way of our GDP keeps growing indefinitely while reducing our ecological footprint. Not necessarily. For exmaple, if I recite a poem to you for a dollar and you sing to me a song for a dollar, GDP increases without changing the ecological footprint. And even if the ecological footprint per capita is growing, we might be able to reduce the overall ecological footprint in a few decades, when earth's populat…

>Not necessarily. For exmaple, if I recite a poem to you for a dollar and you sing to me a song for a dollar, GDP increases without changing the ecological footprint.

And what if we raise our prices, so I recite a bad poem for $1M and you sing a terrible, off-key song to me for the same price? Isn't that effectively massively raising the GDP without doing any useful work at all?

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#65

Post by aristofun »

This is a very dangerous narrative, for some reason popular nowadays — the scarcity mindset, the story of “limited resources”.

If you go back 5000 years ago you’ll see there’s only so many people the planet can feed.

The actual fact is that people _create_ resources when they cooperate (this is why now our planet can afford so many people that ancient would never imagine possible).

It’s not about the technology but about good vs evil beliefs.

Which lead to actions.

Please spread good constructive beliefs, not scary destructive ones.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#67

Post by ASalazarMX »

aristofun wrote: post #65

This is a very dangerous narrative, for some reason popular nowadays — the scarcity mindset, the story of “limited resources”. If you go back 5000 years ago you’ll see there’s only so many people the planet can feed. The actual fact is that people _create_ resources when they cooperate (this is why now our planet can afford so many people that ancient would never imagine possible). It’s not about the technology but a…

Farming produces more food than needed, so you can feed others. Technology just makes farming more efficient, so a smaller percent of the population needs to farm. As long as there's still potential for more farming, population growth means more farmers producing food. If you exhaust the planet's resources for farming, or climate change reduces it, more people won't mean more resources anymore.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#69

Post by cableshaft »

mberning wrote: post #36

I think it will be organic. I’ve severely curtailed my discretionary spending. The restaurants suck now, bad service and low quality food for a high price. Bars are barely open during adult hours, many being closed at 8 or 9pm. Theaters, concerts, and sporting events seem to run on a skeleton crew of people that are clueless. It’s time to walk the walk. Plenty of people have a doomer mindset about the future. Prepare…

> It’s just like everybody upset about the climate, but none of them have installed solar and geothermal on their home.

Average cost of a residential geothermal system: $15k to $38k[1]

Average cost of solar panel roof: $11k to $14k after tax credits[2]

Also your roof shingles should be 10 years old or less before installation[3] (my roof shingles are definitely that old), so for a lot of people they'd have to replace their roof first, so tack on another $5.5k to $11k on top of that for many homes[4].

Total cost to meet your criteria: $26k to $62k.

I'd love for everyone to have solar panels and geothermal heat pumps, but I get why it hasn't happened very much yet. We need a lot more incentives (or major public/private infrastructure projects) to convert these more quickly.

(I realize there ads all over the internet for companies claiming they'll install solar panels for "free", but the BBB warns that those are often scams or can be more expensive for you in the long run[5]).

[1]: https://modernize.com/hvac/heating-repair-installation/heat-...

[2]: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/solar-energy/how-much-do-sol...

[3]: https://www.owenscorning.com/en-us/roofing/tools/solar-panel...

[4]: https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/roofing/roof-replace...

[5]: https://www.bbb.org/article/scams/27595-bbb-scam-alert-free-...

Re: Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

#70

Post by [deleted] »

friedman23 wrote: post #11
legutierr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No extra raw materials were required to get from the planks of wood to the chair but value was created anyway. The labor required to build the chair is one additional ingredient. The transformation of wood and nails to chair does not happen spontaneously.

The labor is a small fixed cost. Depending on what is done with the labor the leverage is potentially infinite (eg. many internet business that earn a million or more per year for every employee they have hired). Growth can happen by getting the same labor to do something more valuable (maybe building houses instead of chairs?)

[deleted]
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