4 ms·
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 conti
by 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 agoI 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.)