4 ms·

That's a fair description of the past too.

chongli 7y ago
At no time in the past were we in danger of reaching the limits of our planetary resources. There was always somewhere else to go, some other resources untapped. In the future that will no longer be the case, unless we manage to settle among the stars. Past performance does not guarantee future results. The story of our society was not written with a fairytale ending. Whether we succeed and create a better future for all or destroy ourselves or create a hellish dystopia, there are no guarantees.
- jlawson 7y ago
  Medieval and previous people were always at the limits of the resources they had the technology to access. The past was a Malthusian world. No economic growth and no population growth for thousands of years, in a world without birth control. The difference was paid by death. This is life when you're at ecological carrying capacity. We managed to find new ways to tap resources better, more efficiently, deeper, and so on, so we revealed new carrying capacity which we haven't reached yet. If we don't advance again the way we did before, a return the Malthusianism is possible. That should be your null hypothesis. However, spreading past Earth or transcending to entirely new ways of existing (e.g. computational life) are also possible. The future resists past-based analysis because the rules are always changing. But there's no reason in principle that we can't tap extraplanetary resources, any more than a Roman-era tribe in Britain couldn't pump for oil in Texas. It just took a lot of steps to get there.
  - chongli 7y ago
    However, spreading past Earth or transcending to entirely new ways of existing (e.g. computational life) are also possible The leap to another planet is far, far greater than to a new continent. It is an open question whether or not we could achieve it at all before a crisis destroys our civilization to an extent we may never recover from. There can be no second fossil fuel revolution, that was a onetime event in Earth’s history. But setting aside the challenge, with new possibilities come new opportunities for inequality. In the case of the former, it’s not difficult to imagine a wealthy person owning an entire planet. In the case of the latter, might I suggest the short story Incarnation Day [1] by Walter Jon Williams. In a world of finite resources and computational life, perhaps only the wealthy and privileged can afford to be incarnated. [1] http://www.sfsfss.com/stories/incarnation-day.html http://www.sfsfss.com/stories/incarnation-day.html
    - imtringued 7y ago
      Space travel requires energy. On earth we obtain most of our energy from the sun. During interstellar travel there is no sun that we can depend on. Therefore space travel is impossible without creating our own sun with fusion power.

At no time in the past were we in danger of reaching the limits of our planetary resources. There was always somewhere else to go, some other resources untapped. In the future that will no longer be the case, unless we manage to settle among the stars. Past performance does not guarantee future results. The story of our society was not written with a fairytale ending. Whether we succeed and create a better future for all or destroy ourselves or create a hellish dystopia, there are no guarantees.

jlawson 7y ago
Medieval and previous people were always at the limits of the resources they had the technology to access. The past was a Malthusian world. No economic growth and no population growth for thousands of years, in a world without birth control. The difference was paid by death. This is life when you're at ecological carrying capacity. We managed to find new ways to tap resources better, more efficiently, deeper, and so on, so we revealed new carrying capacity which we haven't reached yet. If we don't advance again the way we did before, a return the Malthusianism is possible. That should be your null hypothesis. However, spreading past Earth or transcending to entirely new ways of existing (e.g. computational life) are also possible. The future resists past-based analysis because the rules are always changing. But there's no reason in principle that we can't tap extraplanetary resources, any more than a Roman-era tribe in Britain couldn't pump for oil in Texas. It just took a lot of steps to get there.
- chongli 7y ago
  However, spreading past Earth or transcending to entirely new ways of existing (e.g. computational life) are also possible The leap to another planet is far, far greater than to a new continent. It is an open question whether or not we could achieve it at all before a crisis destroys our civilization to an extent we may never recover from. There can be no second fossil fuel revolution, that was a onetime event in Earth’s history. But setting aside the challenge, with new possibilities come new opportunities for inequality. In the case of the former, it’s not difficult to imagine a wealthy person owning an entire planet. In the case of the latter, might I suggest the short story Incarnation Day [1] by Walter Jon Williams. In a world of finite resources and computational life, perhaps only the wealthy and privileged can afford to be incarnated. [1] http://www.sfsfss.com/stories/incarnation-day.html http://www.sfsfss.com/stories/incarnation-day.html
  - imtringued 7y ago
    Space travel requires energy. On earth we obtain most of our energy from the sun. During interstellar travel there is no sun that we can depend on. Therefore space travel is impossible without creating our own sun with fusion power.