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If post industrial revolution history is any indication, human technology and ingenuity has more than compensated for natural resource depletion. Fears that population growth will outstrip food supply or that we will run out of oil seem completely unsupported by empirical evidence. Malthusian ideas have done enormous harm to humanity and I'm surprised that they're still so widely believed. You might find some solace in reading the writings of Julian Simon. This isn't to say we shouldn't pursue conservation, worry about inequality in resource availability, or that certain sources of energy will become too expensive to be used. Yet, outside of some cataclysmic event I see no reason to worry about natural resource scarcity writ large.
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Feb 10, 2017 21:22
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 03:03 |
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SavageGentleman posted:sorry what? Did you completely miss the last posts? Going "well technology will solve everything" is not even a proper argument - it's basically a statement of faith Your evidence that technological growth won't be able to compensate is? Historically it has. Of course this doesn't mean it always will, but without reason to believe otherwise I know what I will bet on. The Al Bartlett talk is kind of a case in point, the only solid argument in there is that consumption of crude oil cannot continue indefinitely, which of course it can't. Yet, there is no real talk about the nature technological growth or even population growth which is vital to understanding how consumption might change. For example, all the population estimates I've read expect that world population is likely to peak sometime in the next century because of demographic transition. Instead that talk implicitly advocates for population controls, which at least presently look like they would've only been harmful.
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Feb 12, 2017 01:36
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