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> "This is actually literally true. There universe's resources are finite. Economic growth comes at the expense of natural resources." The idea that "resources
by epr 8y ago
> "This is actually literally true. There universe's resources are finite. Economic growth comes at the expense of natural resources."
The idea that "resources" that humans use are a fixed quantity that can only decrease is just plain wrong. When humans had no technology or knowledge of agriculture, this may have been correct to some degree, but we are constantly decreasing the size of the population who create value from the extraction and sale of "natural resources". At our level of technological sophistication today, the vast majority of people are engaged in some form of transforming one or more less valuable capital or lower order consumer goods/services into higher order consumer goods/services of some kind.
This is not even to mention that natural resources ARE NEVER DEPLETED EVER. Using oil as an example, the easy to drill oil is all extracted/sold at lower costs/prices, then the rest of the oil becomes more expensive to extract, and this will cycle repeatedly until some form of renewable energy will INEVITABLY take it's place based purely on it's lower cost compared to oil. Oil will then fall into a more niche market and will still be used, but progressively less and less, especially as the old oil infrastructure is replaced with other(s).
This is very similar to how farms use very little natural resources today. As land has become more scarce/expensive to develop, it's use has gotten to the point where farmers know what crops they can grow that will maintain the soil quality, and whether they have to rotate more valuable crops in periodically that damage the soil but produce more profit. A balance is maintained due to economic factors once again.
Environmentalists spend so much time and effort trying to force renewable energy and sustainable practices, but in fact what they want will inevitably come to pass based solely on economic realities.
- Stratoscope 8y agoYour comment was flagged and dead (hidden unless you have "showdead" on in your settings). But I don't see any objectionable content in it other than the use of ALL CAPS for emphasis, which is strongly discouraged here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized." Other than that, you make some good points which people might agree or disagree with but seem worth hearing. So I went out on a limb and "vouched" your comment so it appears in the thread again. If I am in error here, I would appreciate feedback from anyone who flagged your comment, so we can all better understand how to comment appropriately. Thanks!
- epr 8y agoThank you. I do acknowledge that this is generally an unwelcome point of view, but the reason my comment was originally flagged was I believe for legitimate reasons before changes I made soon after commenting. After I was flagged, I looked up those rules you linked but I must have skimmed over the part about not using all caps.