3 ms·

I got fascinated by this experiment and read the paper about it a while back. To me it is haunting what it implies, on the other hand I also have to believe th

by hpoe 5y ago

I got fascinated by this experiment and read the paper about it a while back. To me it is haunting what it implies, on the other hand I also have to believe that humanity are not rats and are more capable smarter and able to reason in ways rats cannot. Ultimately whenever I enocunter these apocalyptic Malthusian predictions I also try and remind myself that the original Malthus was wrong, so was everyone else that predicted the end of the world and collapse of society, thus this prediction is likely wrong as well.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
> I also try and remind myself that the original Malthus was wrong Was he wrong in the sense his predictions didn't make sense, or was he just mistaken about the timeline because he didn't predict us getting lucky with Haber–Bosch process and finding shitload of oil to burn? Because I feel it's just the latter - which doesn't invalidate the predictions, just delays them.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  I suppose a broken clock is right twice a day. When you look at the types of preventable misery inflicted by philosophical sympathizers, such as the Irish Famine, the banal evil of such a lazy train of thought kinda jumps out.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  Malthus had laughably simple mathematical models (strict geometric growth, strict additive food growth IIRC) but the fact that we are staring a worldwide climate crisis and species extinction problem as we race towards 8 billion people and a very uncertain future seems to validate Malthus more than anything. The 20th century was a century of abundant utilization of resources. Unless space mining takes off, I don't think people in the know consider the 21st century in a similar light. The exploitation curves of oil fields are basically similar to many other things: mines, agriculture, etc. We have resources that are easy to get to and use, and others that are progressively less economical/productive. In oil, we're entering the age of tar sands and fracking to keep things afloat until the switchover to EVs happens. EROEI on those things is far worse than the early 1900s where you could stick a pipe into a ground, dig ten feet down and light sweet crude oil would explode out. Technology keeps bailing us out, but one could view technology the same way: a great deal of simple technology has been pruned from the tech tree. Now we're on 3nm semiconductors, nanostructures, microbiology. Which are all amazing, but those are of increasing complication and increasing cost to bring to market. So almost all resources are "developed" from more difficult to exploit sources now. I think his point is that we have unchecked growth and just one planet currently.
  - germinalphrase 5y ago
    “ Technology keeps bailing us out, but one could view technology the same way: a great deal of simple technology has been pruned from the tech tree. Now we're on 3nm semiconductors, nanostructures, microbiology. Which are all amazing, but those are of increasing complication and increasing cost to bring to market.” And fragility/lack of resilience.
op00to 5y ago
All it implies is putting rodents in a prison makes them unhappy.

by hpoe 5y ago

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> I also try and remind myself that the original Malthus was wrong Was he wrong in the sense his predictions didn't make sense, or was he just mistaken about the timeline because he didn't predict us getting lucky with Haber–Bosch process and finding shitload of oil to burn? Because I feel it's just the latter - which doesn't invalidate the predictions, just delays them.

Spooky23 5y ago
I suppose a broken clock is right twice a day. When you look at the types of preventable misery inflicted by philosophical sympathizers, such as the Irish Famine, the banal evil of such a lazy train of thought kinda jumps out.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Malthus had laughably simple mathematical models (strict geometric growth, strict additive food growth IIRC) but the fact that we are staring a worldwide climate crisis and species extinction problem as we race towards 8 billion people and a very uncertain future seems to validate Malthus more than anything. The 20th century was a century of abundant utilization of resources. Unless space mining takes off, I don't think people in the know consider the 21st century in a similar light. The exploitation curves of oil fields are basically similar to many other things: mines, agriculture, etc. We have resources that are easy to get to and use, and others that are progressively less economical/productive. In oil, we're entering the age of tar sands and fracking to keep things afloat until the switchover to EVs happens. EROEI on those things is far worse than the early 1900s where you could stick a pipe into a ground, dig ten feet down and light sweet crude oil would explode out. Technology keeps bailing us out, but one could view technology the same way: a great deal of simple technology has been pruned from the tech tree. Now we're on 3nm semiconductors, nanostructures, microbiology. Which are all amazing, but those are of increasing complication and increasing cost to bring to market. So almost all resources are "developed" from more difficult to exploit sources now. I think his point is that we have unchecked growth and just one planet currently.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  “ Technology keeps bailing us out, but one could view technology the same way: a great deal of simple technology has been pruned from the tech tree. Now we're on 3nm semiconductors, nanostructures, microbiology. Which are all amazing, but those are of increasing complication and increasing cost to bring to market.” And fragility/lack of resilience.

op00to 5y ago

All it implies is putting rodents in a prison makes them unhappy.