The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#71

Post by AlexandrB » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:05 AM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #50

forgetfreeman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot think of an audience more primed to ignore every word of this than Hacker News. See also: the lakehouse guy upthread.

Sure, but I think there's hope. People learn and change. I've been speaking pretty openly about how shitty the effects are of the pro-corporate, anti-human ideology that's prevalent on HN for a few years now. I've noticed more people joining me in speaking out, and less push-back. I made an aside comment a few days back about corporations being willing to murder for profit, and someone else linked a bunch of examples…

I've got some bad news for you about corporations: they're not sentient - some human made the decision to prioritize profit over human lives. Governments and other institutions do this as well (not just for profit, but perhaps for other reasons) because they're also run by humans. It's going to be pretty hard to find a human institution that's morally pure in the way you want.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#72

Post by smokel » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:07 AM UTC

henry_bone wrote: post #45

hehhehaha wrote: post #7

I don't understand how any species escapes logistic growth without strict population control or interstellar travel.

Malthusian nonsense. As societies develop and become richer, birth rates drop. Also, over time, our ability to produce more food has always risen to the challenge.

You may be mixing up causation and correlation in the argument that birth rates will drop.

(See also several other comments on this topic in this thread.)

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#73

Post by oezi » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:08 AM UTC

MichaelRo wrote: post #48

>> The purest example of scarcity creating existential terror is declining birth rates. 50% of the world population is now below the replacement birth rate and younger generations are delaying reproduction or choosing to go childless altogether. While this is generally correlated with one-time increases in standards of living, inverted population age pyramids have historically spelled doom for societies. I think this…

We have already adapted. Birthrates have fallen globally. There are some holdouts, but a new equilibrium is not far away.

https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#74

Post by defrost » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:09 AM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #60

defrost wrote: post #9

I prefer the Forward to the UNEP 2024 Global Resources Outlook (181 pages): Natural resources are the basis on which all economies and societies are built, making their sustainable management critical to ending poverty and reducing inequalities. They are also essential to drive the transition to net-zero. To stay below a 2°C temperature rise by 2050, we will need over three billion tonnes of energy transition mineral…

> but the full report does outline a path forward should sufficient numbers of people and companies take heed. Sure, but a path that depends on companies caring about anything other than profit is a dead end. Companies do not care about ethics, and exceptional (as in, exceptions to the rule) people like Yvonne Chouinard have had to go to great lengths to create atypical corporate structures that may not even work in…

Companies with shareholders, expecially long term institution investors, can be bent to care about more than simple profits - while still profiting albeit not as much as if they chased nothing but maximal short term gains.

Pressure is on various traditional fossil fuel comanies to pivot into being long term energy providers rather than being solely relient on fossil fuel extraction.

Countries are well able to strike deal with fossil fuel extractors to invest in parallel atmospheric carbon extraction (although that's largely a kiss on a sabre cut to date).

That said large scale consumers, entire countries, purchasing blocs, can put pressure on resource providers to change behaviour, and on secondary processing to take increased input from recycled materials.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#75

Post by smokel » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:09 AM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #69

keiferski wrote: post #28

Also worth thinking about in this context is the so-called “repugnant conclusion”: In Derek Parfit’s original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is stated as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that…

> Also worth thinking about in this context is the so-called “repugnant conclusion”: I disagree, elaborate ponderings in the absence of non-hypothetical evidence are not worth talking about. I mean, read the section, "Arriving at the Repugnant Conclusion" with any critical eye at all and it becomes clear that it's total nonsense. They're treating "postponing a pregnancy" (not even aborting an existing pregnancy to ha…

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#76

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:10 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #61

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #23

Excited to answer any questions and happily surprised to see it on the front page. Thank you. I noted elsewhere that this is undergoing major revisions ahead of submissions to IJPS[1]. Riane Eisler read it and asked that I submit. I started working with a co-author a few months ago and he is a published anthropologist so my hope is to have a version done just focusing on the core claims this year. [1] https://pubs.li…

From the paper: "[I]n-groups controlling abundance have increasingly chosen to produce non-necessary goods, rather than produce services to distribute necessary goods to regions with less abundance of necessary goods" This claim seems, to say the least, highly implausible given the amount of aid and charity that developed countries give to less developed countries. The chief obstacle to that aid having more of an eff…

I think you’re confusing my argument.

I don’t suggest a solution

I’m pointing out that the individual desire to increase personal happiness beyond basic needs for reproduction, significantly outweighs their desire to end that same extreme poverty condition for others.

This might be a “duh” but the point is that my hypothesis is that this is a learned/taught perspective, and based on a foundational idea that is no longer true, aka a myth.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#77

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:12 AM UTC

michaelhoney wrote: post #49

Situating the origin of scarcity thinking in the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction is fascinating: this is the first time I’ve encountered this idea and I appreciate it. Thanks to both the author and the sharer!

Thank you for reading it!

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#78

Post by keiferski » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:13 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #52

keiferski wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more a consequence of consumerism and the media-nature of modern society and not directly from increased populations. It just seems that way because science allowing for larger food crops, less child mortality, etc. coincided with the rise of media technology.

What's the mechanism by which consumerism and media lead to lower child births though? It's easy to see that in poorer countries with minimal or no pensions or social security having more children leads to greater productive capacity for the family, and a better chance of the parents being cared for in old age. Family connections are crucial support networks everyone relies on. Each extra child is another insurance p…

Maybe it's not so much that media technology itself leads to lower child births, but that the particular media being pushed results in lower child births. Consumerism is the vehicle by which this happens, because corporations have little use for the family unit and much use for individualized consumers that buy, not make things.

My interpretation is that there are innumerable cultural things that are popular nowadays which discourage people from having children, whether that be TV shows that make "family values" seem outdated and backwards, urban housing that's too small for families, and so forth.

My general point is more that the problems with birth rates are more of a contemporary cultural issue (largely an exported Western one) and not something that just automatically comes with technological/economic development.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#79

Post by keiferski » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:14 AM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #69

keiferski wrote: post #28

Also worth thinking about in this context is the so-called “repugnant conclusion”: In Derek Parfit’s original formulation the Repugnant Conclusion is stated as follows: “For any possible population of at least ten billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better even though its members have lives that…

> Also worth thinking about in this context is the so-called “repugnant conclusion”: I disagree, elaborate ponderings in the absence of non-hypothetical evidence are not worth talking about. I mean, read the section, "Arriving at the Repugnant Conclusion" with any critical eye at all and it becomes clear that it's total nonsense. They're treating "postponing a pregnancy" (not even aborting an existing pregnancy to ha…

If you don't have much interest in philosophy and don't care for thinking deeply about problems, why engage at all? Move over the comment in silence and leave it for people that are willing to think more about a topic. I assure you, Parfit and the other philosophers mentioned are not "stupid" and have thought about this far, far longer than your 3 minutes of read-and-dismiss.

This "hostile anti-intellectualism" is so tiresome.

Re: The Myth of Scarcity and Its Threats to Human Society [pdf] (2023)

#80

Post by smokel » Sat, Mar 02, 2024, 7:14 AM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #33

forgetfreeman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living on a lake is a prestige goal, not a requirement for existence. There is no meaningful scarcity at tier 1 of Maslow's hierarchy.

I don't see a point in striving for a society where most of the population is only meeting tier 1 needs. That's a human chicken farm, not a civilization.

The question is not whether some individuals strive for it, but whether the entire ecosystem moves toward it. Different contexts, different mechanisms.