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... while at the same time tapping into vast new resources, and making great strides to end poverty and disease, while sending life expectancy and living condit

... while at the same time tapping into vast new resources, and making great strides to end poverty and disease, while sending life expectancy and living conditions soaring in most of the world. World population is trending towards stable, and population growth in developed countries is trending downwards. tl;dr: Malthus was wrong. Slightly more detailed explanation of the cultural phenomenon behind the assumption you're citing: http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/hicks-ep-chart-56-evolution-of-socialist-strategies.gif http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/hicks... Edited: to clarify, I think the 'need to use less resources' meme originates from the bottom-left of the flowchart, left-environmentalism. It's wrong. Edited: here come the downvotes ... can we at least make an attempt to discuss this, instead of just disagreeing by downvoting???

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Malthus wasn't wrong, he was off, because we've found some cheap energy source to stave off disaster.
- adventured 11y ago
  Malthus was wrong, extraordinarily so. His mistake at its root was: humans as a creative, efficient, effective problem solving species. There isn't an example yet where humans have failed to think their way out of a massive, species sized problem. And as a whole sum we're getting better at solving problems, faster, rather than worse. There will always be human created solutions to stave off every big disaster. There isn't a realistic example of an inbound disaster that we can't obviously take care of with our brains, or for which there aren't already solutions. We long since have invented multiple cheap energy sources that will continue to stave off 'disaster.' Nuclear, solar, wind - those alone will take care of the future, even if we don't figure out more advanced energy production. In 50 years, solar will be extraordinarily cheap; it already is cost effective. The US could spend a trillion dollars and put another 500 nuclear reactors into place and guarantee our energy security for another hundred years (or perpetually if the plants continued to be used). We've already solved the mess of nuclear waste, now it's merely a matter of time to deploy the technology - less than 20 years. And yes, even with $7 billion plants, nuclear is still cheap energy, and it's going to get even cheaper.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Malthus wasn't wrong, he was off, because we've found some cheap energy source to stave off disaster.

adventured 11y ago
Malthus was wrong, extraordinarily so. His mistake at its root was: humans as a creative, efficient, effective problem solving species. There isn't an example yet where humans have failed to think their way out of a massive, species sized problem. And as a whole sum we're getting better at solving problems, faster, rather than worse. There will always be human created solutions to stave off every big disaster. There isn't a realistic example of an inbound disaster that we can't obviously take care of with our brains, or for which there aren't already solutions. We long since have invented multiple cheap energy sources that will continue to stave off 'disaster.' Nuclear, solar, wind - those alone will take care of the future, even if we don't figure out more advanced energy production. In 50 years, solar will be extraordinarily cheap; it already is cost effective. The US could spend a trillion dollars and put another 500 nuclear reactors into place and guarantee our energy security for another hundred years (or perpetually if the plants continued to be used). We've already solved the mess of nuclear waste, now it's merely a matter of time to deploy the technology - less than 20 years. And yes, even with $7 billion plants, nuclear is still cheap energy, and it's going to get even cheaper.