4 ms·

Yep. Been following this guy since he was at Lionhead, and while he's obviously a very very smart guy, it's disappointing that he puts his hope in techno-fixes.

Yep. Been following this guy since he was at Lionhead, and while he's obviously a very very smart guy, it's disappointing that he puts his hope in techno-fixes. To me it seems fairly obvious that the problems our society faces stem from continuous exponential growth (primarily of energy use), and while technology can be used to tweak the parameters of the growth curve, as it were, the eventual outcome stays more or less the same. This was already shown in the The Limits to Growth model back in the early 70s. To me "new technology will fix it" is essentially a statement of faith, the numbers don't back it up, nor does thinking about or situation honestly.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> To me it seems fairly obvious that the problems our society faces stem from continuous exponential growth (primarily of energy use) This may be. But then, you have two choices: let humans hit the growth ceiling, which will result in mass starvation and death, or lift the ceiling. Technology is the very thing that allows us to continuously lift the ceiling, so it's obvious that any solution not involving mass murder will have to come from technology.
- kilpikaarna 8y ago
  Yes, but: a) the lifting of the ceiling is subject to diminishing returns on resources invested b) once the ceiling has been lifted it will require some continuous expenditure of resources to stay suspended c) the higher the ceiling and the more people there are under it, the worse the crashing down will be if/when that happens.
  - pas 8y ago
    I don't think he advocates mindless consumption, and blind hope that technology will front run this all-burning-rage of human hubris and reckless hedonism. We have pretty good predictions about world population. So anyone screaming about exponential growth should STFU and bring real counterarguments to those predictive models (and their results). And second, the ceiling doesn't have to reach the heavens (and once technologies have been "unlocked" they don't really require any expenditure to keep them around), it has to cover those predicted 10-12 billion people. The solar system has enough resources for trillions of humans. Earth can sustain ~12 billion people almost indefinitely. That said, yes, without cooperation and foresight there will be a crash. And a next one, and a next one, as long as we are here and we are dumb. Once one of that changes, the crashes will be very much complete black swans. (And we can - to a certain degree - try to buffer reserves to meet those future challenges. But we're unable to keep CO2equiv emissions low enough to reverse warming, so it's a bit too early to worry about black swans.)
- fallingfrog 8y ago
  I don't think that a stable population level requires mass starvation or some such thing. Most of the developed world is already at zero or slightly negative population growth, all it required was birth control. (A technology, to your point).
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    We could achieve a stable population, but we're still growing our energy use - and will be for some time, as there's something like 2 billion people who also want to have western living standards (like hot water and washing machines).
    - PeterisP 8y ago
      This is not entirely true - in the developed world, energy use per capita has been stable for many decades now, currently economic growth has been decoupled from energy usage, breaking the assumptions of 70s "The Limits to Growth" argument. There's no exponential growth trend; yes, the total energy usage will grow while the population is (still) growing; yes, the energy usage per capita in developing countries will eventually increase to match developed countries, but that's it, there's expected growth but it is limited. Our continuing progress and well being does not rely on unbounded growth of energy use until it inevitably hits a ceiling; we can expect total energy demand to stabilize at some level (though higher than the current one), and there's no reason why we couldn't meet that energy demand with sustainable means. There's no revolution needed to lift the ceiling - the ceiling we need is within sight, and we can reach it with straightforward application of current technology, e.g. increased adoption and economy-of-scale cost reduction of currently available solar and battery technology among others.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

> To me it seems fairly obvious that the problems our society faces stem from continuous exponential growth (primarily of energy use) This may be. But then, you have two choices: let humans hit the growth ceiling, which will result in mass starvation and death, or lift the ceiling. Technology is the very thing that allows us to continuously lift the ceiling, so it's obvious that any solution not involving mass murder will have to come from technology.

kilpikaarna 8y ago
Yes, but: a) the lifting of the ceiling is subject to diminishing returns on resources invested b) once the ceiling has been lifted it will require some continuous expenditure of resources to stay suspended c) the higher the ceiling and the more people there are under it, the worse the crashing down will be if/when that happens.
- pas 8y ago
  I don't think he advocates mindless consumption, and blind hope that technology will front run this all-burning-rage of human hubris and reckless hedonism. We have pretty good predictions about world population. So anyone screaming about exponential growth should STFU and bring real counterarguments to those predictive models (and their results). And second, the ceiling doesn't have to reach the heavens (and once technologies have been "unlocked" they don't really require any expenditure to keep them around), it has to cover those predicted 10-12 billion people. The solar system has enough resources for trillions of humans. Earth can sustain ~12 billion people almost indefinitely. That said, yes, without cooperation and foresight there will be a crash. And a next one, and a next one, as long as we are here and we are dumb. Once one of that changes, the crashes will be very much complete black swans. (And we can - to a certain degree - try to buffer reserves to meet those future challenges. But we're unable to keep CO2equiv emissions low enough to reverse warming, so it's a bit too early to worry about black swans.)
fallingfrog 8y ago
I don't think that a stable population level requires mass starvation or some such thing. Most of the developed world is already at zero or slightly negative population growth, all it required was birth control. (A technology, to your point).
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  We could achieve a stable population, but we're still growing our energy use - and will be for some time, as there's something like 2 billion people who also want to have western living standards (like hot water and washing machines).
  - PeterisP 8y ago
    This is not entirely true - in the developed world, energy use per capita has been stable for many decades now, currently economic growth has been decoupled from energy usage, breaking the assumptions of 70s "The Limits to Growth" argument. There's no exponential growth trend; yes, the total energy usage will grow while the population is (still) growing; yes, the energy usage per capita in developing countries will eventually increase to match developed countries, but that's it, there's expected growth but it is limited. Our continuing progress and well being does not rely on unbounded growth of energy use until it inevitably hits a ceiling; we can expect total energy demand to stabilize at some level (though higher than the current one), and there's no reason why we couldn't meet that energy demand with sustainable means. There's no revolution needed to lift the ceiling - the ceiling we need is within sight, and we can reach it with straightforward application of current technology, e.g. increased adoption and economy-of-scale cost reduction of currently available solar and battery technology among others.