3 ms·

If necessity is the mother of inventions shouldn’t it be an amplifying force?

makerofspoons 7y ago
That really depends- if we get on war footing to address the problem like we confronted WW2 perhaps. If we procrastinate hunger, water scarcity, and conflict have a tendency to be destructive to knowledge.
- beat 7y ago
  Hunger has become far less of a problem in the 21st century than it has ever been before, at any point in human history. And population growth is leveling off - the global population has quadrupled in the last century, but will probably level off about 50% higher than today in the next 50-100 years. So you're postulating that hunger will get much worse than it is today, without really tremendous population growth, and with significant technological opportunity available in terms of applied computation/robotics and genetic engineering. This seems like an emotional argument, not a scientific one.
  - Vraxx 7y ago
    it seems you're not considering the effects that the climate crisis is expected to have on the conditions that our food production infrastructure is based upon. Water/soil/temperature are all pretty big components of this process that will (and already are to some extent) impact our ability to grow food.
    - beat 7y ago
      And we can't change crops? Or change methods? I'm not buying that. Humans grow crops everywhere, from equatorial deserts to the arctic circle. And the changes that make a given crop totally unworkable (as opposed to not quite as efficient as before) are generation-scale, not the flip of a switch. Water will still exist. Soil will still exist. Short of postulating worst-case scenarios (which are possible), this is all stuff we can handle with existing technology, much less the technology of a century from now.
  - makerofspoons 7y ago
    It's a scientific argument, based on the IPCC's synthesis report on climate change and the land, out last week: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/

That really depends- if we get on war footing to address the problem like we confronted WW2 perhaps. If we procrastinate hunger, water scarcity, and conflict have a tendency to be destructive to knowledge.

beat 7y ago
Hunger has become far less of a problem in the 21st century than it has ever been before, at any point in human history. And population growth is leveling off - the global population has quadrupled in the last century, but will probably level off about 50% higher than today in the next 50-100 years. So you're postulating that hunger will get much worse than it is today, without really tremendous population growth, and with significant technological opportunity available in terms of applied computation/robotics and genetic engineering. This seems like an emotional argument, not a scientific one.
- Vraxx 7y ago
  it seems you're not considering the effects that the climate crisis is expected to have on the conditions that our food production infrastructure is based upon. Water/soil/temperature are all pretty big components of this process that will (and already are to some extent) impact our ability to grow food.
  - beat 7y ago
    And we can't change crops? Or change methods? I'm not buying that. Humans grow crops everywhere, from equatorial deserts to the arctic circle. And the changes that make a given crop totally unworkable (as opposed to not quite as efficient as before) are generation-scale, not the flip of a switch. Water will still exist. Soil will still exist. Short of postulating worst-case scenarios (which are possible), this is all stuff we can handle with existing technology, much less the technology of a century from now.
- makerofspoons 7y ago
  It's a scientific argument, based on the IPCC's synthesis report on climate change and the land, out last week: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/