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Guest Post: The Myth Of Over-Population
Submitted by Logan Albright via Mises Canada,
The world is overpopulated. The street are clogged, traffic is in a snarl, and people are living – both figuratively and literally – right on top of each other. There’s hardly enough room to swing a cat these days, right? Wrong.
The world is not overcrowded at all. There are vast swaths of unpopulated land all over the place. Siberia, Canada, Africa, Australia, even the rural USA all contain more than enough wide open spaces. So why do people labor so resolutely under this delusion? The reason is simple: most people, especially those with the time and inclination to carp about overpopulation, live in areas of high population density, a non-representative sample of the world as a whole. We call these places cities, and the reason why people live in cities, despite their complaining, is that there are benefits for large populations congregating close together.
It is convenient to live in a place with lots of other people, because each of those people can potentially do something for you, from repairing your shoes, to cooking your meals, to running entertainment venues, to, perhaps most importantly, providing you with gainful employment. Try living out in the middle of nowhere and see how easy it is to feed yourself, much less make a living and survive medical problems. The division of labor means that the more people there are nearby, the more able we are to fulfill our wants and needs. Hence, crowded cities.
This misconception of the world’s population problems has led some to celebrate the declining birth rates we now see in most of the developed world. But the anticipation of a little expanded breathing room causes them take the wrong view on the economic impacts of a declining population. This has to do with an incomplete understanding of human action.
Those who worry about overpopulation tend to view people as nothing more than consumers. Resources are finite; humans consume resources. Therefore, fewer humans will mean more resources to go around. This is the core idea behind the opposition to expanded immigration. Namely, the fear that more people will mean less work and less wealth for the rest of us. But while the two premises of this syllogism are true, they are also woefully incomplete, making the conclusion incorrect as well.
The reason is that humans are not merely consumers. Every consumer is also a producer as well, and production is how we have improved our standards of living from the dawn of man till today. Every luxury, every great invention, every work of art, every modern convenience that we enjoy was the product of a mind – in some cases, of more than one. It then stands to reason that the more minds there are, the more innovations we will have as well. A reductio ad absudum reveals the obvious truth that a cure for cancer is more likely to emerge from a society of a billion people than from one of only a handful of individuals.
More importantly, these innovations result in a multiplication of resources, so our syllogism changes to the following: Resources are finite; humans consume resources; humans produce resources; therefore, if humans produce more resources than they consume, a greater population will be beneficial to the species.
That we do, in fact, produce more than we consume is self-evident by looking at the standard of living we enjoy today versus that which we had 50, or 100, or 1000 years ago. As the population has expanded, so has our prosperity, and the reduction in human suffering has been remarkable.
With this in mind, the precipitous drop in global birth rates is alarming. In countries where there is a generous social safety net for the elderly, a shrinking population means that a greater and greater share of resources will go towards caring for the old, while younger generations have insufficient numbers to make up the difference.
As the labor force declines below the level of available capital, machines will start to fall into disrepair and disuse, factories will be abandoned, housing developments will lie unoccupied. All of this results in less economic growth, less wealth, and less prosperity for everyone. Even the aggregate demand-obsessed Keynesians should be able to understand this concept. Fewer people people means less economic activity.
The celebration of low populations largely comes from the environmentalist movement, where anti-human sentiment is frequently overt. Even in less caustic circles, however, the bias against mankind has seeped into the popular consciousness. It’s pervasive; an instinct among lefties that – for some reason they can’t quite put their finger on – people are just no darn good.
This position is only defensible if you pine for the days of smallpox, starvation, contaminated water, and a constant danger of being devoured by hungry predators. If, on the other hand, you do not view those things as part of an idyllic, all-natural existence, you might consider cutting us humans a little slack.
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At least in a city, you'll die quick when the inevitable bright light happens.
AGENDA 21...................BITCHEZ !
"It is convenient to live in a place with lots of other people, because each of those people can potentially do something for you, from repairing your shoes, to cooking your meals, to running entertainment venues, to, perhaps most importantly, providing you with gainful employment. Try living out in the middle of nowhere and see how easy it is to feed yourself, much less make a living and survive medical problems. The division of labor means that the more people there are nearby, the more able we are to fulfill our wants and needs. Hence, crowded cities."
LOL.. how many shoe repairmen do you have in your city? You know he threw that in there as a bad attempt to argue that Western cities actually create anything of lasting value. They've become nothing but an orgy of food, sex, and entertainment. No lasting value creation, besides blowing asset bubbles.
lots of fallacious reasoning in this article.
having open space is not the limiting constraint on population - it is resources.
the author writes:
"The reason is that humans are not merely consumers. Every consumer is also a producer as well"
bullshit! having more people is not going to put more oil, more gold, more copper on the planet. it's not going to re-stock the declining fish population, it's not going to help the bee colony massive die-offs.
disappointing, that the mises institute would publish this author's crappy writing, there's nothing of value in this article, it's an op-ed piece with no substance.
get the hook
Unless humans can find new energy sources and a way to transport large numbers of humans off-world to productive colonies, then population will most definitely be a problem. The sad part is 99% of humans can't grasp this simple concept, which means we are all fucking doomed.
Seriously mises, have any of you guys passed high school or what?
http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/visual/visual.php?shortname=distri...
just got off the phone with my cobbler. asked him what the chances of him moving to siberia to repair shoes. he said nyet.
Oil is finite. One barrel of oil equals 23,000 man-hours of work. The cheap, easy oil is gone.
It's called exponential math. They used to teach it around the 8th grade or so. Who knows if they still teach that type of thing in school.
That's all you need to know.
Therefore, fewer humans will mean more resources to go around. This is the core idea behind the opposition to expanded immigration.
This comment is plain false. Most people fear mass immigration is out of fear their own society or culture will be destroyed in the process. This is already happening in many parts of the US or Europe.
There's also no proof anywhere that immigrants work harder than natives. However, in Western welfare societies immigrants quickly become even larger loads on the state support system.
LMAO, nothing gets me going like this topic...
Dr. Albert Bartlett made this presentation 13 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
"Every consumer is also a producer as well"
Umm. I don't remember the actual number but in America, Welfare reciepients + gov paycheck recipients are like 60% of the population.
There goes that theory...
I agree with what you say with the clarification that some people produce goods and some produce bads.
Civilization fails when the proportion of those producing bads rises to a critical level.
Ahahah! This guy is fucking clueless!
Man did Nothing! Oil did it All!
When it goes, we go!
And like ZH explained, it's not about stock, it's ALL about FLOW!!
I am pretty sure if we tried we could replace much of the need for oil with industrial hemp. Not saying it would be easy, but it can be done.
do not conflate the problem of too many old people vs. those of working age with that of the end result of overall slowing/reversing population growth leading to a declining world population. the former is a transitional, relatively short-lived event of perhaps several generations' duration while the latter is almost certainly the fate of the world for the foreseeable future.
the cause of this is what women want when they get educated and relatively wealthy: fewer or no children, a better life for themselves, that child/those children and more autonomy. it's coming and nothing will stop it. the global recession/depression and any ancillary world of war will just accelerate the trend.
puts a bit of a spin on bitchez, no?
Most people look at the future the way Star Trek looked at the future: they transfer the present into the future with a few additional gimmicky things that they think are cool.
Technology is about what is possible and reasonably practical. Combining water extraction technology with cheaper solar technology will make much more of the earth's surface habitable. The interior of Australia comes to mind.
http://www.aquasciences.com/products_eng.shtml
Just having the ability to grow meat in plants will take a lot of pressure off fuel and land use. Domed cities will open up cold climates and sea-steading will do the same for the oceans.
Most people are wired to think like their distant ancestors - in the eternal now.
Saw where if they dumped everyone in grand canyon it wouldnt even fill up to the rim....
Land of the free range citizens
Anusocracy, this is a great post if I read it like one of MDB's - as rich sarcasm. Because I think you just said "all we need is an endless source of cheap clean energy using ________ (insert miracle technology here) and we'll be fine".
If you're serious, well, you're more optimistic than your usual posts would suggest.
See that last setence, that applies to most of you here as well.
He is correct on his statements.
"all we need is an endless source of cheap clean energy using ________ (insert miracle technology here) and we'll be fine".
the Sun. Coal, oil, natgas and hydro power are all derived from the Sun. In the relative lifespan of human beings, this source of energy is nearly endless. It is the cost of extraction and the waste in production and consumption that come first to mind.
And for all those that continue with the overpopulation crap- the RATE OF POPULATION GROWTH has been in a long term decline for the past 30 or so years. Only poor countries and the ulta-religious countries continue to see population growth. One, because there is little else to do besides roll Ma over at night and two, to save the extinction of Neanderthal angry big-guy-in-the-sky religions, the mullahs and leaders want as many of their tribe available as possible.
Religiosity may be a manifestation peculiar to man but it still abides by the motivations of nature.
I wonder if there is an alien civilization out there in which science developed before religion.
i am going with no because supernaturalism is an easier, quicker but ultimately less convincing explanation for nature than is science. and proving ethics by argument from authority is less satisfying than even a crude combination of observation and reason.
Definitely so. Very few people are wired to think objectively.
Emotional thinking rules the day because the social world drove most of our intelligence.
It only makes sense to be optimistic about the good aspects of man and pessimistic about the bad.
My pessimism is better spent on government.
THORIUM!
Be sure to look out for the fascist big goernment bomb builders talking it down.
You can see that last sentence being in full force with your junks and the replies to you, and those people simply do not realize how stuck in a particular mode of thought they are.
I'm reasonably certain that 150 years ago most everyone thought people in 2014 would still be using horses and wagons for their transportation.
Although, if government continues on its merry ways, we may be forced to use horses again.
The herd needs to thin itself, but unfortunately Liberalism's nasty side effect is that it keeps the less intelligent folks kicking around as labor and they have more of a voice in their given societies in the west thanks to socialists.
I am not advocating eugenics, but if the free-market were in full force the idiocy would simply stop beling able to breed in such large quantities.
Projecting?
Exactly how would they "not be able to breed"? You are aware, are you not, that primitive humans - living like all other animals in a perfectly "free market" devoid of government - had the most children.
You want people to stop breeding? Then provide healthcare, education and security, particularly to women. That is what evidence demonstrates to be effective: birth rates fall alongside infant mortality rates. Women's suffrage and equal access to jobs further limit breeding.
Left vs right has nothing to do with it.
But seeing as you ignore facts in favor of some mental model, explain to me how your "free market" will do an adequate job of providing healthcare and education to the poor in order to curb their breeding. Provide an example in history of it working at a national scale and working better than the more "socialist" models that we currently have in the world (and that are very effective).
Perhaps you had something rather more sinister in mind?
Stop making sense....
"You are aware, are you not, that primitive humans - living like all other animals in a perfectly "free market" devoid of government - had the most children."
Average lifespan of a primitive - a little over 20 years.
Maximum number of tribe members - about 150.
Killing of defective newborns - mandatory for survival of the tribe and the mothers genes.
Overall infant death rate - very very high.
Breeding rate - very very high to compensate.
Please don't compare the reproductive behaviors of the foragers with those of the modern world, although I would guess that the overbreeders in the modern world do it as a somewhat different survival strategy.
And modern governments were responsible for four hundred million deaths in the 20th century. And what free market?
So you got everything wrong.
And you can provide even more powerful free market forces through the the unfettered emission of pollutants and carcinogens....
It's kind of amazing how at the same time you overlook the negative effects of "social security" retirement schemes: by taking away the feedback loop to raise a (limited) number of offsprings to the best of your ability, it allow the intelligent to wiggle out of that responsibility (with some nice rationalizations on the way: overpopulation, nuclear war, ...) and leaves the stupid to procreate and in many cases then handover "education" to the government.
If our bodies atrophy down to just a brain living in a bubble, then overpopulation is merely a propaganda tool for war profiteers.
Here is another one of his papers. He thinks lazy Americans (labor participation rate is low) are choosing to not work; to take more leasure time in their lives because work is tyranny. He neglects the fact that there are no fucking jobs to have and many Americans would love/need to work. Goverment wants everyone poor and indentured servants. This guy is a goverment economist. It figures.
http://mises.ca/posts/blog/canadians-choose-work-while-the-u-s-remains-i...
Why work when I can collect government checks and do absolutely nothing most of the time.
If you work and pay taxes you support the beast and all it's evil works.
Quit, drink beer, and fight the power.
"Every consumer is also a producer as well " ??????????????????????????
WTF. Every producer is a consumer, but no way is every consumer a producer.
Without the surpluses from those that actually produce things of value, all the FIRE parasites would die.
Unless humans can find new energy sources
You mean what the sun is showering the earth with is not enough for us?
Ever try to can some of that stuff and save it for later?
Coming up when they harness the photosynthetic electron transport chain.
Gold shouldn't be included in there in my opinion. Gold is not even remotely at risk of running in short supply. It is, and has always been, a rather minor material in terms of its industrial applications to date.
Gold's value is in the predictability and stability of its supply.
Concur with the rest though.
Figures I'd get voted down for bad-mouthing gold. I am not saying holding gold is a bad thing to do right now (though I prefer silver), I am just saying that it has minimal industrial application. Thus it can be in short-supply because the supply shifts hands, or continents, but not because it finds its way into unrecoverable industrial technology. This may change in the future with shifts in technological development, but for now it is the case.
Gold's unique properties as a relatively liquid, physical asset that has a predictable increment in its supply makes it a good STORE OF VALUE, to hedge against financial apocalypse brought about by loose Fed monetary policy. In essence gold is as close to real physical money (as a function of its chemical properties), as anything can get. Just be sure to have plenty of food, water and shelter too. Since just like iPhones, gold isn't edible.
Hope that clears things up.
More people means more thorium and fusion researchers. You don't need more gold. And more people means more graphene and other material science researchers. It also means more fish farms.
But you're right, we're all gonna die unless we kill everyone!
+1000
We just got through a post of where unsold cars go to die.... It has nothing to do with land mass fucktards it has everything to do with habitat and resources of mother earth....ZH post that if the world where all Amerikans we would need four planets to supply the necessary resources to accommodate this cluster fuck we call infinite growth forever farce......The structure of our reserve currency DEMANDS CONTINUED GROWTH not going to happen in the land of shit paper t bills coming from Belgium at $200,000,000,000.00 with proceed of which came from waffles and chocolates? who believes this fucking shit. With seven million people in Belgium they would have to have 20k per person to by the fascist states of Ammerika toilet paper and that would include the kids in fucking cradles....
IT'S NOT FUCKING LAND MASS..... IT'S RESOUCES... HOLY SHIT.... We are losing 200 species very day....Welcome Walmart Shoppers Forever...We need to grab our anatomy take inventory and face the fucking FACTS.
Did none of you actually read the article?
The world is overpopulated. The street are clogged, traffic is in a snarl, and people are living – both figuratively and literally – right on top of each other. There’s hardly enough room to swing a cat these days, right? Wrong.The world is not overcrowded at all. There are vast swaths of unpopulated land all over the place. Siberia, Canada, Africa, Australia, even the rural USA all contain more than enough wide open spaces. So why do people labor so resolutely under this delusion?
Just enough to know this was a post of land fucking mass ..my turn WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, you should have read the whole thing, so should have the rest of the Socialists here..
I read the whole thing. It wasn't worth it.
Although it does cement my opinion of the Mises Institute.
And it does make me question the validity of other ZH articles through guilt by association.
Exactly...
If you fuck up the real simple concepts, it is usually a given that the more complex stuff will be beyond your grasp...
Every person on earth today could be placed in an area the size of New York City (a small city by area) and be given one square meter of space each--little more than a pinpoint as seen on a world map. In fact, just those life forms categorized as insects have a total mass over 20,000 times greater than all humans. Humans are the only form of life on earth that 'consume', because the life processes of all other life is continually being recycled. There are many noted scientists who have estimated that the earth could comfortably support at least 10 times the current world population, with some estimates reaching as high as 1000 times. Of course, these estimates are based on the assumption that our present living arrangements be seriously reorganized.
Of course, these estimates are based on the assumption that our present living arrangements be seriously reorganized.
Yes down the shitter!!
Surprised?
Mises institute. Austrian economics.
Strong supporters of exponential growth on our beautiful small planet!
Incredibly sick.
Sadly many people fall victim to their poison, because they support Gold. But a gold backed currency with compound interest in a world without borders and fully unleashed markets, where the US worker without protection competes with the Chinese or Indian slave worker and the European small mountain farmer competes with the agro-industry in the USA...
That's the Austrian school of economics.
Rolling Stones been around 50 years.
Just sayin'.
Not all the Stones are around.
I know of three shoe repair shops in the Santa Clarita Valley area where I live. They do a lot of other stuff besides shoes, like custom leather work. I had one of them do a quick repair to a laptop back pack I really like. It was a freebie from a trade show and would have cost a lot more to replace than repair.
This article has serious problems.
The place where I live is not necessarily "high density", but the excellent places that I used to go fishing are no longer even there. The area was strip mined for coal to be shipped to Asia.
So, put "over population" into perspective. The energy demands of Asia has directly affected the streams and rivers in the rural areas that 30 years ago were very different than they are today. That is a direct result of overpopulation, no matter how vacant the Siberian tundra is.
Yup... twice the population and the argicultural footprint on the land goes from 40% to 80%. Goodbye forests everywhere. Plus the gas for my Hummer will require bank financing.
This is what happens when you grow up with the surname Albright.
Should've been named Logan Notsobright...
The Mises Institute of Canada is nothing more than a platform for ideology that is free of facts. This article proves it more plainly than most.
Yes, because an organization whose sole goal is to get people thinking and talking about these issues definately must be about a particular ideology rather than about trying to get the thinkers of the world focussing on the things that actually matter.
There are few things in this life that I pity but simple minded folks like you whom are filled with hate brings out my pity for you. You are so filled with hate that you are incapable of holding a rational conversation with anyone that might threaten your control over any given situation.
This would actually indicate that you are a sociopath.
Seriously, you don't think they are "about a particular ideology?"
LTER, i just watched a video where stefan molyneux hosts the peter schiff show and completely destroys criticisms that people have of ayn rand, makes them look like the total fools that they are:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeXblLS4lnY
i recommend you watch it!
15mins in and the guy didn't bring up a single defence of ayn rand's work (let alone even discuss her 'ideas')
"ayn rand is brillaint!! even nyt says she's brillaint! She's my hero! her critics are idiots! Gawd I love her sooo much!! Did i mention she's a genius??"
Like listening to a 12 year old girl talk about justin bieber - which is right about the intellectual / emotional level of her fanclub.
I only read the first two words of your post, the rest are meaningless and your point is obviously faulty from the first two words.
Do you even know the definition of the word ideology?
You call that "thinking"? They're not even babies. They're too dumb to even be propaganda. Perhaps they just might be "the cheapest quote". And they're probably too dumb to realize that "the cheapest quote" is NOT a compliment.
Ah, but there are subsets of humans that are overpopulated.
human predator "wolves" are over populated.
Human acquiescent "sheep" are over populated.
Human low political sophistication / high control freak pathology "Praetorian Guards" are over populated.
Th eone group that is under represented are people with truly liberated (free thinking) minds who desire to live in peace and freedom... but will aggressively defend against all criminals, foreign AND DOMESTIC, that try and subvert liberty amongst the common people.
Soylent Green was a blueprint proposal to service an overpopulated world. What the writers never imagined was a world that welcomed Soylent Green with open arms. A world where people are content masturbating to Kim Kardashian in 3D and taking Soma pills without need for productive enterprise, including family or relationships at all
That's where Aldous Huxley came in to fill the void....
“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution”
~ Aldous Huxley
Spot on.
We have an overpopulation of parasites (political or otherwise), I blame cheap money policies and fiat money printing central banks... central banking has created the biggest bubble of them all... parasites.
Bingo
So, you are saying that high population is bad because you like having a lot of area all to yourself?
Think about your logic there, ie what shape is it in?
How do we have all these artificial lights without access to enough clean burning lamp oil from whales!?
This stuff is not too hard if anyone can be bothered.
Radius of earth = 6400km. Current population = 7 billion.
Surface area of earth = 4 pi r2
======>
73 500 m2 per person, but two thirds of that is ocean so
24 500 m2 of land per person
= an area less than 160m x 160m per person.
( that's less than 175 yards x 175 yards for the unmetricated )
Bare in mind that not all of that land is inhabitable. But that is the amount of land that is available per person for growing food and digging up metal (okay, feel free to dig metal out of the ocean) and whatever else you need land for and please leave a bit of your patch for some trees and wild animals. Yes, I do realize that people can live in boxes stacked on top of each other and they are currently working on multi-storey farmland. Knock yourself out. Maybe one day natural sunlight will only be available to the privileged class.
How long?
Last time I checked, the human population doubles every 40 years, 2^15 = 32768 which is larger than 24500, 15 x 40 = 600, so in less than 600 years, at current rates, we will have one person per square metre on the land of the earth. Good thing we know how to stack people on top of each other. If you can't afford land then you or your great grand children should at least learn how to fix elevators.
From http://micpohling.wordpress.com/2007/03/27/math-how-much-co2-is-emitted-by-human-on-earth-annually/
Feel free to check their figures elsewhere.
CO2 produced from humans breathing = 1.3 - 2.2 Giga tonnes per year. (From human population of 6.6 billion, the low CO2 figure comes from people breathing while at rest.)
CO2 produced from human activities (burning fossil fuel) = 24 Giga tonnes per year.
25 = 32
5 x 40 = 200
So either way, in less than 200 years the amount of CO2 that we produce from breathing alone will equal the amount of CO2 produced by the world's current fossil fuel consumption.
And beware the website that says, "But breathing doesn't matter because you need plants for food and the plants will soak up the carbon and make human breathing carbon neutral ..." Well, correct me if I'm wrong but while that carbon travels from human mouth to plant body, it is still heating the planet, is it not? That argument is like saying that you can squeeze any amount of fue-air mixture into an engine without blowing it up because it always gets burnt on the next cycle. Oh yeah, and don't forget to make room for the extra plants.
I'd like to believe you that over population is not a problem. In that case, I can have my V8 and drive it as fast as I like whenever I like and pollution and over-consumption won't adversely affect this planet in any way what-so-ever. No? Then low population and prosperity or high population and poverty. Your choice.
PT, the radius of the earth is 24 thousand miles.
You have the circumference there Rusty...................
pfffft, beer talking...I'll just shut up now, thanks.
175x175 yards is 30,625 square yards per person, or 6.33 acres PER PERSON.
another way to put it is, you could fit the entire population of earth in Texas, and each person would have 1000 square feet.
The earth could EASILY sustain 20 billion people. But that would require a lifestyle change that most are unwilling to undertake.
What PT didn't put into their calculation and the rest of you probably missed is this:
http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/visual/visual.php?shortname=distri...
The earth can barely sustain 7 billion with most people living in poverty / highly polluted areas. And you think 3x is realistic under any conditions?
Both statements are true and related: over-population will solve itself, high population levels (compared to historical) are a huge problem.
32 feet x 32 feet? Awesome! I hope the entire state of Texas is inhabitable. You got fresh water on that entire 32 x 32 feet? No extreme cliffs on which building would be difficult?
"... would require a lifestyle change that most are unwilling to undertake."
You betcha we're not "willing to undertake".
As humans, we like to make things better, not worse. But you go ahead, knock yourself out. Explain to your kids about these wonderful "lifestyle changes" that are so important to you.
You're willing to have 1000 square feet per person? Planet wide? Congrats. You'll be happy right up to the point that the world population is 1847 billion. At a doubling rate of every 40 years, you have less than 360 years. But as someone else mentioned, the birthrate is decreasing so you could have longer. But as I replied, the humans with the power are hell-bent on putting more tax-paying consumption slave labour units, I mean humans, on the planet so they can have more feathers in their already-well-feathered-nest. To find out what will really happen, we'll just have to wait and see.
You might want to check again.
Human population growth is starting to level off already, so forecasts that the population will top at 12 billion or so are reasonable.
Yes, you've got me there. So it may take a little longer. Or the problem may solve itself.
On the other hand, TPTB have vested interest in growing the population so we'll see who wins. In my country, govt pays people 5 grand just to have babies! Where does that lead?
EDIT: But I stand by my assertion that if over-population is not a problem then pollution and over-consumption are also not problems. Why should I give up my V8 ( actually, I don't own one - grrrrrrr ) just so someone else can have kids??? Probably miserable kids - miserable because they don't own a V8!
EDIT EDIT: And also note that when I say, "V8", I also mean it as a metaphor for any type of "over-consumption" that is frowned upon by greenies.
Where's my private helicopter?
EDIT EDIT EDIT: Local news on my telescreen this week:
1. They're planning on building taller buildings (urban infill) to accommodate a fast-increasing local population.
2. They're going to reduce water pressure in order to lower water consumption because we haven't got enough water!
Yes, the fuckwits really are too stupid to put 2 and 2 together, be it the fuckwits in charge or the fuckwits reporting on the fuckwits in charge.
Smallpox, starvation, contaminated water, and a constant danger of being devoured by hungry predators?
Hmmmm - valid points but we conveniently replaced them with heart disease, cancer, drug addiction, homelessness, obesity, weapons of mass destruction and the danger of being devoured by a ponzi scheme debt fueled economy just to name a few.
Dunno - kinda makes doing battle with smallpox and lions look like a reasonable option . . .
Good point.
Speaking of Agenda 21...
Mother Nature is cooking up her own version: Antibiotic-resistant super-bacteria. Nature's going to have the last laugh, and that dish will be... served cold.
Mises thinks bacteria are underpopulated, and welcomes free-range libertarian bacteria to lifekind.
Neither the 'Austrians' nor the 'Keynsians' have any clue regarding thermodynamics or physical consservation laws, and sincerely believe that we shal eventully just repeal them.
More so, Mises thinks we should let nature take it's course rather than adopting the Keynesian solution of trying to change nature in our own image.
Since when did Keynes suggest or ever say anything like that?
Don't worry you will get the outcome you desire, little bands of hunter gatherers and pockets of subsistence agriculture where your Libertarian nirvana can flourish...
It will take no more that 200-250 years....
Mises idiot thinks cities produce anthing. No moron. Cities only survive because mass quantitites of food, fuel and water are constantly shipped in. Nothing gets shipped out except waste.
Yeah, we really need a few billion more /s
Cities take resources from the country and convert them into parts for your tractor. Apart from that, carry on ...
Agenda 21 is correct. Malthus keeps popping into my mind also. Royalty and the elites loved him. Still do.
Malthus' thinking helped Darwin in watching populations rise and fall. Nevertheless, unless we as human beings kill each other off, I believe population growth will stabilize and economic growth per se, will stop.
The only need for economic "growth" in today's world is to pay rent (interest) to the money conjurors. Inflation is the carrot (or the whip) that Central banks use for their illusion.
It's so ridiculous how many people simply do not understand how much of an impact inflation has one everything in their daily lives.
Care to provide a concrete example? Be sure to make it relevant to "daily lives"....
Psst, the effects of cost push inflation from resource scarcity doesn't count..
Wow. This has got to be about the most simple-minded lame-brained grade school level garbage I have ever read. Anywhere. Ever. DBy posting this, does that mean the zh contributor(s) agreee with it? Brings up a serious credibility issue with anything I read on here. Seriously, they post some insightful stuff on here and it's the go-to place for me for news/info that matters. Myabe theyre reaching out to the pure embicile demographic. Don't know where to begin to critique this article.
More people equals less freedom.
More people equals more govt. which means less freedom.
Inherent inequalities in people means more govt. and less freedom.
And soylent green will always be available!
Peak Insanity
Patience... they'll get us there soon enough..
We are headed towards Peak Insanity as fast as we can, because our economic system is based on strip-mining the planet. Our economy creates money out of nothing as debts, in order to pay for turning natural resources into garbage and pollution as fast as possible. In that REAL context, this article above was so extremely STUPID, as to deserve to be called insane, but then, our entire political sysem is based on exponential growth of everything, which requires attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance towards the limits of being able to continue to do that.
The deeper problems are about exponential growth based on strip-mining resources having built up systems that depend on having been able to strip-mine a fresh planet, which enabled exponential growth to take place, BUT, without any rational plan whatsoever regarding running into limits, because the basic economic system was based on enforced frauds, i.e., making money out of nothing as debts.
This article asserted the most preposterously absurd statement "humans produce resources!" Human beings NEVER do anything but act as entropic pumps of energy. Human beings can transform energy, they can NOT make it out of nothing. Our social system allows making money out of nothing, to pay for strip-mining the planet's resources. That debt slavery system has generated numbers which have become debt insanities. The runaway treadmills of debts have been forcing people to constantly strip-mine the planet as fast as they could, to keep up with paying their debts, after money made out of nothing was created, so that the financial accounting systems could account for taking natural resources, and turning them into garbage and pollution as fast as possible.
The deeper problems are that real human ecology was based on the history of its murder systems, which were warfare, where success was based on deceits. That then became the foundation for financial systems which were based on enforced frauds. All of that made systems of lies backed by violence dominate civilization, and control what civilization did, which systems were able to operate with attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance to the social polarization and destruction of the natural world which was occurring.
Economics is science like warfare is a science. Economists deliberately ignore the basic energy laws operating through evolutionary ecologies, because economists focus on the extremely limited ways that those developed inside human systems controlled by murder, which backed up a money system based on fraud. Mainstream economics is a special science which is based on fraud, in paradoxical ways whereby it deliberately denies and ignores the existence and nature of that fundamental fraud, as much as it can! Therefore, mainstream economics is about how monetary accounts work through human economic systems, but that kind of economics deliberately ignores how banksters became the source of making that money out of nothing, as enforced frauds.
That kind of economics is hermetically sealed rationality, within its little limited world, where the money system actually is backed up by the murder system, but the mainstream economists avoid, as much as possible, talking about what that means! Mainstream ideas about political economy deliberately ignored human ecology, because mainstream economics deliberately ignored the ways that its foundations were legally enforced frauds. Since that is the way the civilization actually operates, through systems of legalized lies, backed up by legalized violence, which get away with doing that to the degree that some human beings can control other human beings with dishonesty and coercion, therefore, it is almost impossible to estimate the degree to which we are rushing as fast as we can towards PEAK INSANITIES.
Overshoot in a nutshell is that exponential growth will end in catastrophic collapses into crazy chaos. The ACTUAL controls in the future will be the same as the ACTUAL controls were in the past, namely, murder systems operated through the maximum possible deceits.
It is theoretically possible, IF there was some prodigious series of political miracles, that better economics could be reconciled with ecology, and the natural environment, BUT NOT WHEN "MONEY" IS BEING MADE OUT OF NOTHING AS DEBTS BY PRIVATE BANKS!
There could be better human and industrial ecologies, that were integrated with natural ecologies, and operated in similarly sustainable ways that those natural ecologies developed the ability to do. However, IN FACT, no rational public debates about anything we are doing is remotely possible, because those more rational debates would have to revolve around admitting and addressing the ways that there actually is a combined money/murder system, or systems of enforced frauds, as the basis of all other economic accounting, that uses that "money" to calculate whether things were worthwhile to be done.
Human civilization is a paradoxically operated general energy system, which is controlled by its most labile components, where are the people who are the best at being dishonest, and backing their dishonesty up with violence. Of course, human civilization does NOT break any laws of nature, however, human civilization is based on being able to deliberately ignore or lie about the ways that human laws are connected to natural laws through the ways that lies can be backed by violence. "Success" within human civilization comes from enforcing frauds against other human beings, through ways where the overall cost to society as a whole, as well as the natural environment, is able to be most deliberately ignored by those people who are most enjoying that kind of "success."
Personally, I WISH that I too could still indulge in the bogus bullshit ideas that mainstream economists do, because then I could time-warp back to enjoying the strip-mining of the planet, without any worries about what happens when the diminishing returns from being able to do that rather suddenly mean that the exponential growth has drastically overshot, and therefore, is collapsing into crazy chaos ... I WISH that I could go back to indulging in the deliberate ignorance that believes as long as there are enough resources left to strip-mine in the immediate future, then we should continue to do that as fast as possible, without any concern for the worries that there are not enough natural resources to keep doing that forever. I WISH I could continue to indulge in turning as much natural resources into garbage and pollution as I could, as fast as possible, while believing that was a good thing to do, because I was making more "money" by doing that! HOWEVER, AFTER ONE WAKES UP ENOUGH, IT BECOMES HARDER TO GO BACK TO BEING ABLE TO DELIBERATELY IGNORE THE EVIDENCE AND LOGICAL ARGUMENTS!
In my view, there are lots of arrogant idiots who are able to rationalize their indulgence in strip-mining the planet, without any compassion or concern for future generations. Indeed, our entire social system is almost totally dominated by those kinds of arrogant idiots, who are privatizing the profits, while socializing the losses, from strip-mining the planet as fast as possible. Inside the current human world, they accumulate more tokens of "money" that, within that society, represent prestige and power, to be able to engage in even more strip-mining. The banksters and their buddies get to make money out of nothing, to finance strip-mining the planet, and then can spend that money enjoying their time of participating in turning natural resources into garbage and pollution as fast as possible.
There seems nothing to stop those runaway systems of enforced frauds, except their final consequences. Those who are most actively doing that now are also those who are most able to maintain attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance towards those longer term consequences. PEAK INSANITIES are where we actually are headed, while those making that happen are able to enjoy doing that, because they are already quite insane. Arrogant idiots are happily plugged into the systems that are making "money" out of nothing to finance strip-mining the planet.
That debt slavery system has generated numbers which are already debt insanities. WHAT COMES NEXT, after those debt insanities manifest the ways that mainstream economics was always INSANE, because it was always based on enforced frauds, that were able to get away with deliberately denying the laws of nature (because that is what successful fraud actually is, a lie that works in the short-term, but not in the longer term), IS THAT THE DEBT INSANITIES PROVOKE DEATH INSANITIES.
THE EXPONENTIAL GROWTH BASED ON STRIP-MINING THE PLANET, DONE BY PEOPLE BEING ABLE TO OPERATE SYSTEMS OF ORGANIZED LIES AND ROBBERIES, THAT COULD GET AWAY WITH IGNORING THE LAWS OF NATURE, SO THAT "MONEY" COULD BE MADE OUT OF NOTHING, TO PAY FOR THEIR STRIP-MINING THE PLANET, IS GOING TO PROVOKE DEATH INSANITIES.
Since the real debt controls were covertly backed up with death controls, but that was never publicly admitted or discussed, but rather deliberately ignored and denied, the triumphant financial frauds that control our civilization are setting it up to have its exponential growth based on strip-mining the planet OVERSHOOT, GO THROUGH PEAK INSANITIES, AND THEN COLLAPSE INTO THE CHAOS OF DEATH INSANITIES.
At present arrogant idiots are still able to indulge themselves in strip-mining the planet ... and able to indulge in their insane ideas that there is nothing wrong with that, but rather, are happy to enjoy themselves doing it more, as much as they can. In my view, the author of this article was one of those kinds of arrogant idiots, and anyone else that agrees with him, or defends him, are other kinds of arrogant idiots ... Like I said, sometimes I WISH that I too could go back to being like them, an arrogant idiot that never worried about the longer term consequences of strip-mining the planet's natural resources at an exponential rate, however, it is too late for me now to be able to forget the evidence and logical arguments regarding the real nature of those problems.
In my view, our established civilization is an insane asylum, controlled by the most criminally insane people, which is heading towards manifesting its PEAK INSANITIES ... Everyday that arrogant idiots make more "money" inside of the human systems of organized lies, backed by violence, there is worse social polarization, and destruction of the natural world. However, everyday that happens, those arrogant idiots making that "money" are then able to use that money to even more control civilization. That vicious spiral of money being measurement backed by murder, which gets to operate through attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance towards itself, means that we are constantly driving debt slavery towards worse debt insanities, and since those debt controls were always backed by death controls, as we drive our civilization towards debt insanities, we are also driving it towards death insanities.
The most insane aspect of Peak Insanities, are that the arrogant idiots making that happen are able to indulge in all kinds of personal delusions about how that is not so bad, or even a good thing to do. Those who are making a killing are enjoying themselves while doing that. By and large, they are able to indulge in thinking in ways which enable them to not worry about what happens after everyone keeps on making the maximum killing possible, through strip-mining the whole planet's natural resources as fast as possible ...
Haven't you got a job, or a girlfriend, or even some mates you can hang out with?
Ah, another ad hominem, from someone who is probably one of the arrogant idiots that I described above.
To answer your questions: I am retired. I have a girlfriend, and mates to hang out with. I am also the leader of a registered political party, which runs candidates under my Zero Hedge name on the ballots. One could say that my comments on Zero Hedge are rehearsing my political speeches.
Although I presume that is probably a waste of time, because "democracy" is practically dead, nevertheless, it feels better to try to do something, rather than nothing, because irrational hopes are better than having no hope at all.
The author needs to grasp the understanding of cultivated land vs non - cultivated
Ha! Ha! He thinks Siberia and Northern Canada have the resources to support large populations. He can't connect land mass with resources. Why does he think all cultivatable land is cultivated? Why does he think New York city isn't in Greenland?
The modern world is foremost about Oil/Gas/Coal, cultivated land, fresh water and mineral resources. It is about enough space to absorb all the modern economies' waste stream.
Look, I am not even gonna argue against this article. It is laughable in it's ignorance of world geography, resources of modern industrial society and just plain common sense.
Bloody fool wrote that piece of claptrap!
Exactly, ..."vast areas in Africa" as in, the Sahara Desert, lol
Sandworms and scorpions are high in protein...
Don't forget all the space inside ice caves, crevasses abd magma chambers
Not to mention the Marianas Trench!
I'd buy some chocolate covered scorpions... hmm let me check amazon for that.
.
Yep. It reads like it was written at a Grade 8 level. Anyone who confuses overpopulation with a lack of ground to stand on is automatically self-ridiculing.
Since he's not dealing with reality, I propose a magical solution to his unreal dilemma. Just have people live on airplanes. They could land to stock up on supplies and refuel, and then take off again. Simple, huh?
Those perpetual-flight, live-aboard aircraft would only be feasible using nuclear fuel. I remember detailed pictures of nuclear-powered airplanes from back in the 1950s (back then, they had to put the reactors way back in the tails).
Time to take 'em out of mothballs, I say!
"There are vast swaths of unpopulated land all over the place. Siberia, Canada, Africa, Australia, even the rural USA all contain more than enough wide open spaces. "
Those lands are owned by billionaires, corporations, federal governments, or are wastelands. Much of it is too hot, too cold, too dry, or too lifeless to be useful.
Human innovation creates resources? WTF? Innovation enables us to exploit more resources, but it doesn't create coal, oil, natural gas.
More people means less energy per person, unless we deplete reserves faster.
Soylent Green bitchez
Can't wait for Tuesday!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQmxm1YSrF8
HELLLZ YES!!! Peeps don't need no ground to stand on when de scoops iz on de waaaaay!!!!!
Looks normal to me o.O ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_curve.svg
The ultimate hockey stick. Largely enabled by fossil fuels and industrialization. Most economists do not grasp that energy is a universal currency of work. Thus every good on the planet has an energy requirement.
Macroeconomists are too busy circle jerking to regression analysis to understand this simple concept. I asked a Macroeconomics professor whether he was concerned about rising energy costs. His response? "Most contemporary studies have shown little correlation between energy costs and economic growth."
So all those factories are going to keep running if the cost of oil, or gas spikes right? Yes, I will concede that it depends on the energy mix that the individual nation has opted for. Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, thermal.. all alternatives. But they also have significant energy investment to create, and aside from nuclear (fuelled by uranium) they are not a medium which is essentially a portable store of energy.
Edit: And one more point on nuclear. It is a complex and volatile process. Thus it isn't exactly like you can strap a nuclear module onto a car and let someone drive to the mall. You need nuclear engineers, technicians, and highly skilled labor to protect against meltdown. Furthermore it is unlikely the entire planet could switch over to nuclear in a short time anyway, and uranium prices would skyrocket.
I asked a Macroeconomics professor whether he was concerned about rising energy costs. His response? "Most contemporary studies have shown little correlation between energy costs and economic growth."
A lot of economics & business strikes me as highly cultish / religious with little or no basis in reality. Surprising a professor would say something so ignorant, but in economics who knows.
I have studied both chemistry (first) and economics (later) at degree level. I concur.
You also have to wonder, particularly with business, as to how qualified half of the professors are to do anything. If they have genuinely been involved in the private sector for some time that is one thing. If they have been sat in an academic ivory tower, that is a completely different type of individual. Academia tends to shelter and create bubble-thinking. Anyone who wants to truly understand their environment needs to learn from books and from the larger world.
Hell, look at what Greenspan, The Ben Bernank, and J-Yell have done to the US. Most academics are booksmart dupes.
Free markets with secure property rights and unrigged competitive prices would reveal which resources are meaningfully scarce and provide opportunity for riches to those who come up with ways to overcome that scarcity. If only we lived in a world that actually had secure property rights and unrigged, non-fascist markets!
As I have commented before, the economics profession rewards the central planners who come up with ever more complex models with which to plan. When the models fail as they are bound to do, the blame will go on resource scarcity instead of the true culprit, which is the modern Politburo approach to economics. Even the genuine USSR Politburo at least had "shadow prices" to mimic the observable market prices from the free-market West. Our New World Order Politburo is totally unmoored from reality, and likely to bring about the dismal end foreseen two centuries ago by Thomas Robert Malthus.
The idiocy that passes for economics these days is brought on by the accrediting boards and their emphasis on grants and crony-refereed quantitative publications. Being a "free market" economist means being completely marginalized within the profession. Simple economic principles are the most important, but to expound them is interpretted to mean you are just simple minded.
It's true (unfortunately), but I studied the degree to understand the rules of the game rather than to gain honest knowledge. I can educate myself in that regard.
My favorite economic debate was in regard to micro-financing in a class that dealt with public sector economics. Obviously I am paraphrasing here, I cannot remember the exact conversation, but this was in a Q&A after a 20 minute presentation:
Student: "So in conclusion people need to be protected from big financial institutions and their dishonest lending practices."
Me: "Correct me if I am wrong here, but I believe you are supporting the public sector stepping in to set a cap on the interest rate that is carried on micro-financed loans?"
Student: "Yes. In order to protect people from bankers this would be our policy recommendation."
Me: "So say you set the interest rate at 2%. What happens when the loan market is saturated and economic growth prospects are diminished? Won't that mean bankruptcy?"
Student: "Yeah. I guess so."
Me: "Then the only way to protect the people further would be to drop the interest rate lower, right?"
Student: "Yes."
Me: "Would you support that?"
Student: "Yes probably."
Me: "And what happens when the interest rate is effectively close to zero and the economy turns down? Or what happens if the money velocity slows and deflation sets in, increasing debt burdens?"
<At this point there is an uncomfortable silence in the room>
Student: "But that won't happen for a long time."
Me: "Alright, but this is a serious long-term consideration. Even if this takes 20 years. I don't believe this type of policy, which is evident in the United States is a wise one. It's irresponsible, because if people are overextending themselves at 5, 6, or 7% you can sure as hell bet they will be overextending themselves at close to 0%. If the rates rise to eventually reflect the market lending rate, and they will as a function of risk, then the number of bankruptcies will be enormous if they are on floating rate financing."
Jovial Professor: "Yes, well. We will just have to worry about that in 20 years won't we."
<Class laughs>
That was about the point I realized that half of the stuff was just complete bullshit. I found Zero Hedge a week later.
Jovial Professor: "Yes, well. We will just have to worry about that in 20 years won't we."
<Class laughs>
Man, does that ever resonate with me. Mrs. Mahabir, 10th grade physics - introduction to elementary particles.
Made the mistake of mentioning wave theory (I already knew the material at that point - I'm one of those guys that's actually interested in stuff). Ridiculed in front of class.
This is the universal tactic of someone who knows nothing and fears being exposed. Their worst nightmare is a student who actually understands the work better than he/she. Kids, expect no mercy from these soviet style careerists. Parrot back what they want to hear, and do the real work on your own - or do what I did: drop out, work for a few years, get your diploma through correspondence (no time wasted on useless electives) then go on to higher education, where for sure you'll meet many more Mahabirs, but at least you'll see it coming and will know what to do.
And whatever you do, don't marry a school teacher...LOL!
Ahhh, the mythical deflation myth reguritated. I hate falling prices, they always fall faster than my wages. Henry Ford dropped the price on the model T, $100 gained 1000 new customers. More central banking lies.
Deflation can actually be catastrophic. But that would be for massive debt holders who CANNOT extinguish their debts.. see: new students in the USA.
If you are free of debt then why would people care about falling prices provided their wage becomes fixed? Only leveraged companies, nations, banks (as a function of fractional reserve banking) and individual debt-holders should care.
You may have seen this classic:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/
The key takeaway is this nugget:
Physicist: But let’s leave the Matrix, and cut to the chase. Let’s imagine a world of steady population and steady energy use. I think we’ve both agreed on these physically-imposed parameters. If the flow of energy is fixed, but we posit continued economic growth, then GDP continues to grow while energy remains at a fixed scale. This means that energy—a physically-constrained resource, mind—must become arbitrarily cheap as GDP continues to grow and leave energy in the dust.
Economist: Yes, I think energy plays a diminishing role in the economy and becomes too cheap to worry about.
Physicist: Wow. Do you really believe that? A physically limited resource (read scarcity) that is fundamental to every economic activity becomes arbitrarily cheap? [turns attention to food on the plate, somewhat stunned]
Economist: [after pause to consider] Yes, I do believe that.
Physicist: Okay, so let’s be clear that we’re talking about the same thing. Energy today is roughly 10% of GDP. Let’s say we cap the physical amount available each year at some level, but allow GDP to keep growing. We need to ignore inflation as a nuisance in this case: if my 10 units of energy this year costs $10,000 out of my $100,000 income; then next year that same amount of energy costs $11,000 and I make $110,000—I want to ignore such an effect as “meaningless” inflation: the GDP “growth” in this sense is not real growth, but just a re-scaling of the value of money.
Economist: Agreed.
Physicist: Then in order to have real GDP growth on top of flat energy, the fractional cost of energy goes down relative to the GDP as a whole.
Economist: Correct.
Physicist: How far do you imagine this can go? Will energy get to 1% of GDP? 0.1%? Is there a limit?
Economist: There does not need to be. Energy may become of secondary importance in the economy of the future—like in the virtual world I illustrated.
Physicist: But if energy became arbitrarily cheap, someone could buy all of it, and suddenly the activities that comprise the economy would grind to a halt. Food would stop arriving at the plate without energy for purchase, so people would pay attention to this. Someone would be willing to pay more for it. Everyone would. There will be a floor to how low energy prices can go as a fraction of GDP.
Economist: That floor may be very low: much lower than the 5–10% we pay today.
Physicist: But is there a floor? How low are you willing to take it? 5%? 2%? 1%?
Economist: Let’s say 1%.
Physicist: So once our fixed annual energy costs 1% of GDP, the 99% remaining will find itself stuck. If it tries to grow, energy prices must grow in proportion and we have monetary inflation, but no real growth.
Economist: Well, I wouldn’t go that far. You can still have growth without increasing GDP.
Physicist: But it seems that you are now sold on the notion that the cost of energy would not naturally sink to arbitrarily low levels.
Economist: Yes, I have to retract that statement. If energy is indeed capped at a steady annual amount, then it is important enough to other economic activities that it would not be allowed to slip into economic obscurity.
Physicist: Even early economists like Adam Smith foresaw economic growth as a temporary phase lasting maybe a few hundred years, ultimately limited by land (which is where energy was obtained in that day). If humans are successful in the long term, it is clear that a steady-state economic theory will far outlive the transient growth-based economic frameworks of today. Forget Smith, Keynes, Friedman, and that lot. The economists who devise a functioning steady-state economic system stand to be remembered for a longer eternity than the growth dudes. [Economist stares into the distance as he contemplates this alluring thought.]
I might even take this one step further. Most economists believe growth under a steady-state model (such as Solow-Swan) will plateau and remain there. In practice growth could even diminish as unit energy costs place new constraints on the models assumptions. The model isn't flawed necessarily, but some of the assumptions will probably need to be modified in the future.
Unless we make it into space.
There's got to be space Indians somewhere begging to be tamed.
Fred Hoyle observed long ago that humanity has one, and only one, shot at becoming a space-faring species. Once Earth's cheap energy/resources have been consumed, the opportunity to exploit (ahem) the remaining system will also have passed.
I have to say.. I disagree. It will certainly be an exponentially expensive prospect though.
"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only. (Hoyle, 1964; emphasis added)"
So I can twist my head into thinking of quality of life development in an otherwise steady-state as being a form of indefinite growth. But it’s not your father’s growth. It’s not growing GDP, growing energy use, interest on bank accounts, loans, fractional reserve money, investment. It’s a whole different ballgame, folks. Of that, I am convinced. Big changes await us. An unrecognizable economy. The main lesson for me is that growth is not a “good quantum number,” as physicists will say: it’s not an invariant of our world. Cling to it at your own peril.
I actually agreed with points on both sides, but the economist is arguing things which in other contexts I'd imagine he'd completely oppose. ^ This last bit sums up my general thinking though.
Liked this funny bit near the beginning:
I assume you’re happy to confine our conversation to Earth, foregoing the spectre of an exodus to space, colonizing planets, living the Star Trek life, etc.
Economist: More than happy to keep our discussion grounded to Earth.
Physicist: [sigh of relief: not a space cadet]
Actually at lunch today discussing an energy project which turned into a discussion on general energy costs and within 10mins that devolved into a heated debate about the pros and cons of colonizing mars. We're all space cadets out here!
Summary:
Tomorrow will be just like today!
IMO, with nuclear, light water reactors should become a thing of the past. Molten salt reactors should, in theory, be much safer. We would then need to develop the technology for using the energy from a reactor to manufacture liquid fuels, and the basis for that technology exists. But even then, that won't stop other forms of resource depletion.
Yeah. If humanity got off its ass and started looking further ahead than the next 2 years, liquid fuels could indeed be manufactured from saltwater, interestingly acting as a mop to offset atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
I have great faith in today's scientists. Not so much faith in today's politicians.
We have faith in uncorrupted scientists and technicians because they actually SOLVE problems.
Politicians don't solve problems. They create laws. And laws don't solve problems. They simply penalize behavior.
Politicians are no different than the 15th century bishop insisting the earth is flat... Despite thousands of years of scientific 'heresy' to the contrary.
Politicians are the priests sitting atop the Mayan temple insisting a few more rolling heads will bring the rains.
Politics is nearly religious. It requires faith. Faith blinds truth... a nice little benefit for the political priesthood.
uncorrupted scientists LOL. If scientists want to climb the greasy pole (or even keep their job), they have to go along with the Whatever the funders want. See the pharmaceutical industry for the most egregious example of this.
The most highly esteemed professor in my chemistry department was a biochemist who was doing privately funded research for the food industry. He had around 10 million dollars annually in research grants, his own personal assistant (who was hot by the way) and a high-end car. Most of the other guys were doing minor research here and there and were living off table-scraps in comparison.
It doesn't have to be that way. The system is just crooked.
My favorite episode of Big Bang Theory is where Penny realizes she can no longer date stupid guys after being with Leonard.
If only more hot chicks could make that breakthrough, the world would be a much better place!
Nuclear power is subsidised by oil - in just the same way that PV panels and wind turbines are. This is the dirty secret that very few people know and the green energy types that do know, don't seem to shout about it much.... Nuclear power stations are just a weapons grade plutonium factory for the MIC which, as an afterthought, produce some electricity.
Right, it takes oil to mine the uranium, haul the uranium to facilities to be enriched, haul the enriched uranium to the power plant, etc... Oddly enough, some of the energy for enriching the uranium comes from coal and natural gas. If you really want to go to a nuclear economy, the liquid fuels would have to be manufactured using energy generated at the nuclear power plants to take the place of the oil, and any energy used in the processing of your nuclear fuel would have to come from a nuclear power plant. The same applies to any other fuel cycle other than the uranium fuel cycle.
And as I'm fond of saying, "renewables" are only as renewable as the equipment used to harvest the energy.
I've always asked the "Solar can save us" crowd: "Show me a solar panal factory that can run on solar."
In theory, yeah. But when there are not enough jobs for all these people it does not makes any sense.
This article does gloss over the finite resource issue though. A critical resource will be extinguished by rising population eventually, and chances are it will be something that most humans don't even care about:
- Phosphate rock.
- Crude oil.
- Potable water.
- Natural gas.
These are a few commodities that people should potentially be worried about. Arable land may also be in short supply in the future.
Edit: and don't forget that a resource doesn't have to vanish for things to become critical, a diminished supply and an increased demand of a commodity (through population growth), can have some very unpredictable affects on a complex system like the current global economy through unsustainable price levels in other areas.
"Every consumer is also a producer as well"
I fail to see any logic in this article, if a consumer is also a producer then that producers production adds to his consumption; this sounds like QE applied to the availability of comodities.
"1 in 6 consumers is also a producer!" - would be more accurate once you account for children, retirees, disabled, unemployed, government employees and contractors, bankers, traders, middlemen.
1 in 10 ?