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Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

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Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#71

Post by wazoox »

dagw wrote: post #63
wazoox wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. This guy is simply making the very basic point that politicians, economists and bankers selling us "growth" as a solution to unemployment, debt, etc are plainly lying. Growth (population, GDP, energy availability, etc) will stop at some point. An economy that relies entirely on growth to merely function is doomed to fail spectacularly at some point in time.

I agree that population growth cannot go on forever (although I consider doubling the current number quite likely). However I see no reason why energy availability can't keep growing for many many centuries to come. We aren't tapping the full potential of nuclear fission, to say nothing about fusion. Things like solar energy in all its variations is also a source we basically aren't using at all. Give us 50-100 years…

> However I see no reason why energy availability can't keep growing for many many centuries to come. We aren't tapping the full potential of nuclear fission, to say nothing about fusion.

Nuclear fission is currently on decline. We aren't even building enough power plants to maintain its output, nor are we likely to do so in the next 20 to 30 years. Industrial nuclear fusion is decades away, probably a century.

From the 18th century onwards, we went from tapping ever better energy sources (denser, lighter): animal power, coal, oil. There aren't any better energy source than oil available now, or in the foreseeable future. At some point, we'll have to do with /less/.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#72

Post by wazoox »

zemaj wrote: post #19
prodigal_erik wrote: post #14

I'm not usually a fan of long talking-head videos but this was absolutely worthwhile. What's most chilling is the story of the bottle and the bacteria, and the realization that somehow finding a whole new planet would only tide us over for a couple more generations, after which we'd need two more....

But it's all considered in a vacuum. Even though the majority of the population don't understand the problem, this is ok. We have an economic system that benefits those who predict impending needs and place themselves in situations to provide for them. Take a look at the green industry ramping up. In the not too distance future, I think most of us here expect oil replacement to be highly profitable. I disagree with t…

> To me, this explains how primarily capitalist countries tend toward stability

Except that doubling GDP, resource consumption, etc every 20 years hardly can be called "stability".

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#73

Post by Daniel_Newby »

wazoox wrote: post #71
dagw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that population growth cannot go on forever (although I consider doubling the current number quite likely). However I see no reason why energy availability can't keep growing for many many centuries to come. We aren't tapping the full potential of nuclear fission, to say nothing about fusion. Things like solar energy in all its variations is also a source we basically aren't using at all. Give us 50-100 years…

> However I see no reason why energy availability can't keep growing for many many centuries to come. We aren't tapping the full potential of nuclear fission, to say nothing about fusion. Nuclear fission is currently on decline. We aren't even building enough power plants to maintain its output, nor are we likely to do so in the next 20 to 30 years. Industrial nuclear fusion is decades away, probably a century. From…

"At some point, we'll have to do with /less/."

This part of the long business cycle always produces a lot of arguments for austerity. So far they have always turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

"Nuclear fission is currently on decline."

Nuclear power, both fission and fusion, is currently in a renaissance and we appear to be laying the groundwork for the next stage of advances: gas- and metal-cooled reactors, superconductors, mechanical compression systems, reliable mode-locked lasers, dielectric wall and wake field particle accelerators, electronics that can do real-time gigahertz feedback, etc.

When the next long expansion gets into full swing, I predict that the nuclear logjam will break loose.

"There aren't any better energy source than oil available now, or in the foreseeable future."

There's a lot of solar power in space. A lot. And literal mountains of metal, richer than the best terrestrial ores and pre-smelted too. At some point technology will tip the profit margin positive on exploiting it.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#74

Post by wazoox »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #73
wazoox wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However I see no reason why energy availability can't keep growing for many many centuries to come. We aren't tapping the full potential of nuclear fission, to say nothing about fusion. Nuclear fission is currently on decline. We aren't even building enough power plants to maintain its output, nor are we likely to do so in the next 20 to 30 years. Industrial nuclear fusion is decades away, probably a century. From…

"At some point, we'll have to do with /less/." This part of the long business cycle always produces a lot of arguments for austerity. So far they have always turned out to be spectacularly wrong. "Nuclear fission is currently on decline." Nuclear power, both fission and fusion, is currently in a renaissance and we appear to be laying the groundwork for the next stage of advances: gas- and metal-cooled reactors, super…

> So far they have always turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

So far, there weren't 7 billions humans neither.

> Nuclear power, both fission and fusion, is currently in a renaissance

Absolutely not. This is GE and AREVA PR, but doesn't reflect the truth. We aren't building enough nuclear plants now to compensate for the future closing of the old ones. The numbers aren't even ramping up fast enough. As time goes by, there will be less and less active nuclear plants.

Fusion research is blooming, but it didn't make much progress, particularly compared to the huge effort (see ITER).

> There's a lot of solar power in space. A lot. And literal mountains of metal, richer than the best terrestrial ores and pre-smelted too. At some point technology will tip the profit margin positive on exploiting it.

This is science-fiction. I'm pretty close to say this is complete BS. "Space ore" simply can't happen unless you find the way to harvest the power from some magic ponies yet to discover.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#75

Post by dagw »

wazoox wrote: post #74
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"At some point, we'll have to do with /less/." This part of the long business cycle always produces a lot of arguments for austerity. So far they have always turned out to be spectacularly wrong. "Nuclear fission is currently on decline." Nuclear power, both fission and fusion, is currently in a renaissance and we appear to be laying the groundwork for the next stage of advances: gas- and metal-cooled reactors, super…

> So far they have always turned out to be spectacularly wrong. So far, there weren't 7 billions humans neither. > Nuclear power, both fission and fusion, is currently in a renaissance Absolutely not. This is GE and AREVA PR, but doesn't reflect the truth. We aren't building enough nuclear plants now to compensate for the future closing of the old ones. The numbers aren't even ramping up fast enough. As time goes by,…

I totally agree that we aren't building enough nuclear power plants, but that is purely for political reasons. The research is still happening and once there is a change in the political climate we'll be able to ramp up nuclear power over a few decades.

Also if we look back at the past 1000 (or even just 100) years of human history, we've been pretty good at discovering and harvesting 'magic ponies' of all shapes and sizes.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#76

Post by eru »

Luc wrote: post #50
chaosmachine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a useful way to tell when your investments will double in value. 5% interest: 70/5 = 14 years to double your money.

It also works for inflation or other yearly recurring charges. Those small percentages add up quickly - at 3% inflation and 2% charges the value of your investment in today's dollars/euros will halve in 14 years. Yikes!

Yes, but why use it, when you can do a logarithm?

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#77

Post by rsheridan6 »

mhartl wrote: post #37

Before people freak out about exponential growth, please consider John McCarthy's Slogan. (Yes, that John McCarthy; Lisp isn't the only thing he's done.) He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense. http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html Based on reactions to this video (among other things), I'd add Hartl's Counterpoint: Just because you're willing to do arithmetic doesn't mean you're n…

In the context of population growth, the logistic function means that something has made it stop. He dealt with this is the second video - he says we'll get zero population growth one way or another, because exponential growth forever is impossible.

Around minute 7 of the second video (did you actually watch it?) he points out that many of the checks on population growth are generally considered bad things - war, famine, disease (the alternative being birth control). This is hardly a reason not to freak out.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#78

Post by rsheridan6 »

ModelCitizen wrote: post #17

A note on the rest of the series: He spends the remaining time outlining some impending Malthusian catastrophe / peak oil scenario. For a counterpoint, check out anything by Julian Simon.

Bartlett on Simon: http://www.albartlett.org/articles/art1998jan.html

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#79

Post by sesqu »

eru wrote: post #76
Luc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also works for inflation or other yearly recurring charges. Those small percentages add up quickly - at 3% inflation and 2% charges the value of your investment in today's dollars/euros will halve in 14 years. Yikes!

Yes, but why use it, when you can do a logarithm?

Few people can do logarithms in their heads - and those that can, usually do it using similar tricks. I realize that "doing math in your head" is well on the decline, but it is pretty essential for speedy approximations, which are what many decisions tend to be based on.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#80

Post by pbhjpbhj »

fleitz wrote: post #48
bryanh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though this is logically sound, the core issue remains. Are we to tell them a little starving and death now is good for you in the long run? I think it is extremely interesting to ponder where lines of morality lay on issues like this.

The first step to answering that question is to start thinking of Africa as a continent full of individuals rather than through terms like "us" and "them". Most answers in the affirmative involve a lot of rationalization and dehumanization and in the modern world likely some kind of starvation default swap sold by a financial institution. We're all individuals sharing this planet. We are not our government(s). (Unles…

So if a vaccine for a deadly disease is not 100% safe then you wouldn't use it at all as actively killing 1% is worse than passively allowing 80% (say) to die?

When making considerations of the well being of whole populations one has to consider the whole population not the individual.

A decision to withhold food aid now might kill 10%, but supplying that food and buoying up the population until the next big crisis is likely to kill far more people and could push us beyond sustainability - there is a point at which renewable resources become to depleted to recover. Sure, one can consider that the Jones family will lose their daughter and so we have to send food but this leads us on and on to overpopulation.

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