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Part 3 of the book is a program for that reason https://worldaftercapital.gitbooks.io/worldaftercapital/content/part-three/ https://worldaftercapital.gitbooks.i

Part 3 of the book is a program for that reason https://worldaftercapital.gitbooks.io/worldaftercapital/content/part-three/ https://worldaftercapital.gitbooks.io/worldaftercapital/cont...

emodendroket 9y ago
"Free ourselves from scarcity thinking." Brilliant. Do not worry about the decrease in arable land, shortages of drinking water, decline in biomass in fisheries, scarce minerals, or any of that stuff. It's all in your head! Mind over matter, man.
- aninhumer 9y ago
  That's not the argument being made there. Indeed, the argument is that "scarcity thinking" prevents people from addressing those problems, because people are afraid of losing what they have individually, and so are incapable of collaborating on collective issues.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    What's the solution to declining fisheries that involves such "post-scarcity" thinking?
    - aninhumer 9y ago
      The point isn't that avoiding scarcity thinking magically provides a solution. It's that it's very difficult to implement a solution when you have e.g. a lot of fishers who stand to lose out from it. The idea is that we should work towards a society where the people who currently fish are happy to stop fishing if necessary, because they don't fear for their survival or comfort if they do. I'd agree it's not really a good short term solution to acute problems though.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        I can't see how it would possibly work without such scarcity thinking as saying people can't take too much fish.
        aninhumer 9y ago
        That's not what is meant by "scarcity thinking" in this context. I suggest you read the chapter about it.
    - albertwenger 9y ago
      Fish farming. Growing fish meat from stem cells. Finding substitutes for fish meat, e.g. via synthetic biology from fungi.
- yourapostasy 9y ago
  > Do not worry about the decrease in arable land... Apply more technology: agroforestry combined with Boston Dynamics-type robots. Look into published material from/by Ernst Götsch, F. H. King, and Masanobu Fukuoka among others on principles. The techniques they worked out and published can be used to rebuild, reclaim, and build de novo arable land. Main criticism of these techniques is they are too labor-intensive. There isn't a law of physics that enforces wheeled farm machinery, so robotics-based farm machinery can assist with capturing scale. It's a new frontier, so no established player wants to pursue it at this time as long as our backs aren't against the wall when it comes to available arable land. > shortages of drinking water... Apply more technology: potable water supply is roughly a derivative function of available energy. Push comes to shove, we as a species are going to widespread nuclear power if necessary instead of the leadership dying by dysentery. > decline in biomass in fisheries... Apply more technology: mega-scale research and engineering to build fish sanctuaries/breeding grounds in the relative marine deserts of the open oceans. We're still in the relative hunter-gatherer phase of our aquaculture tech. When we have vast farms in the deep open water ocean that grow algae, then plankton, and upwards, raising an entire tower of consumption, instead of catching wild fish to feed domesticated fish, then I'd say we are relatively progressing into true aquaculture. Wouldn't hurt to develop at the same time genetically modified sponges and coral to capture and entomb mercury, and start millennia long filtration while we work out how to stop dumping it into our ecosystem. > scarce minerals, or any of that stuff. It's all in your head! Apply more technology: von Neumann mining while at the same time sending out starwisps to scout nearby star systems. Hundreds and even millennia-long timelines here, but not constrained by the known laws of physics, only by our species' own will to overcome our internal dissension. The question I'm unsure of is will capital allocate to the "more technology" solution space before we as a species run out of time? I'm not entirely convinced capital markets actually understand the timelines, scales, and civilizational risks we are working with here, and even if individual people within the markets understand them, there is an argument to be made that the incentive structures of the markets combined with people's natural lifespans combine to create perverse incentives for funding Long Now-scale tech. The dominant thesis the markets have embraced thus far is "the tech will become available when the threat becomes clear and present", which is outright faith and not based upon any settled science. Once the timeline to develop and deploy the tech to solve or even mitigate the challenges you outlined above exceed the timeline to catastrophic civilization-wide impacts, the capital markets have failed their anticipation function.

Part 3 of the book is a program for that reason https://worldaftercapital.gitbooks.io/worldaftercapital/content/part-three/ https://worldaftercapital.gitbooks.io/worldaftercapital/cont...

emodendroket 9y ago

"Free ourselves from scarcity thinking." Brilliant. Do not worry about the decrease in arable land, shortages of drinking water, decline in biomass in fisheries, scarce minerals, or any of that stuff. It's all in your head! Mind over matter, man.

aninhumer 9y ago
That's not the argument being made there. Indeed, the argument is that "scarcity thinking" prevents people from addressing those problems, because people are afraid of losing what they have individually, and so are incapable of collaborating on collective issues.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  What's the solution to declining fisheries that involves such "post-scarcity" thinking?
  - aninhumer 9y ago
    The point isn't that avoiding scarcity thinking magically provides a solution. It's that it's very difficult to implement a solution when you have e.g. a lot of fishers who stand to lose out from it. The idea is that we should work towards a society where the people who currently fish are happy to stop fishing if necessary, because they don't fear for their survival or comfort if they do. I'd agree it's not really a good short term solution to acute problems though.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I can't see how it would possibly work without such scarcity thinking as saying people can't take too much fish.
      - aninhumer 9y ago
        That's not what is meant by "scarcity thinking" in this context. I suggest you read the chapter about it.
  - albertwenger 9y ago
    Fish farming. Growing fish meat from stem cells. Finding substitutes for fish meat, e.g. via synthetic biology from fungi.
yourapostasy 9y ago
> Do not worry about the decrease in arable land... Apply more technology: agroforestry combined with Boston Dynamics-type robots. Look into published material from/by Ernst Götsch, F. H. King, and Masanobu Fukuoka among others on principles. The techniques they worked out and published can be used to rebuild, reclaim, and build de novo arable land. Main criticism of these techniques is they are too labor-intensive. There isn't a law of physics that enforces wheeled farm machinery, so robotics-based farm machinery can assist with capturing scale. It's a new frontier, so no established player wants to pursue it at this time as long as our backs aren't against the wall when it comes to available arable land. > shortages of drinking water... Apply more technology: potable water supply is roughly a derivative function of available energy. Push comes to shove, we as a species are going to widespread nuclear power if necessary instead of the leadership dying by dysentery. > decline in biomass in fisheries... Apply more technology: mega-scale research and engineering to build fish sanctuaries/breeding grounds in the relative marine deserts of the open oceans. We're still in the relative hunter-gatherer phase of our aquaculture tech. When we have vast farms in the deep open water ocean that grow algae, then plankton, and upwards, raising an entire tower of consumption, instead of catching wild fish to feed domesticated fish, then I'd say we are relatively progressing into true aquaculture. Wouldn't hurt to develop at the same time genetically modified sponges and coral to capture and entomb mercury, and start millennia long filtration while we work out how to stop dumping it into our ecosystem. > scarce minerals, or any of that stuff. It's all in your head! Apply more technology: von Neumann mining while at the same time sending out starwisps to scout nearby star systems. Hundreds and even millennia-long timelines here, but not constrained by the known laws of physics, only by our species' own will to overcome our internal dissension. The question I'm unsure of is will capital allocate to the "more technology" solution space before we as a species run out of time? I'm not entirely convinced capital markets actually understand the timelines, scales, and civilizational risks we are working with here, and even if individual people within the markets understand them, there is an argument to be made that the incentive structures of the markets combined with people's natural lifespans combine to create perverse incentives for funding Long Now-scale tech. The dominant thesis the markets have embraced thus far is "the tech will become available when the threat becomes clear and present", which is outright faith and not based upon any settled science. Once the timeline to develop and deploy the tech to solve or even mitigate the challenges you outlined above exceed the timeline to catastrophic civilization-wide impacts, the capital markets have failed their anticipation function.