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> Berry is coming from the worldview that God created a world of great abundance and that if we share, there is enough for all. Sure, but he/they are simply wr

by lisper 4y ago

> Berry is coming from the worldview that God created a world of great abundance and that if we share, there is enough for all. Sure, but he/they are simply wrong about that. The natural state of living systems is to propagate until they reach a natural limit imposed by some resource constraint or other. Our current technological civilization is an anomaly produced by the sudden release, over a period of a few hundred years, of solar energy stored over a few hundred million years, with a concomitant rise in CO2 levels and global temperatures. That party cannot be expected to last much longer, computers or no computers.

kspacewalk2 4y ago
Alternatively, the anomaly is no anomaly at all. Its origins were fortuitous, but rather than a reversion to the baseline of misery it was an unlocking of a new normal though a series of irreversible (or very unlikely reversible) inventions, much like agriculture was. We used one source of energy to power our leap forward, we'll use a different one to sustain a baseline of plenty, or maybe unlock a new level soon. I see no reason whatsoever why this is less likely than the doom and gloom currently so in vogue.
- lisper 4y ago
  Well, I hope you're right. But I'm not sanguine about civilization's prospects for surviving >2C temp increase, which seems to be where we're headed.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
Berry has written extensively about environmental degradation. Notice the caveat above: "if we share". Human greed is the fly in the ointment. Again, he's written extensively on the impact of human greed on the environment. It's not inconsistent to think that there is enough for all and also to think that when we try to grab too much of that stuff for ourselves (more than what we need) that that mutual enough-ness (I hesitate to use the word "prosperity" here because it's accreted a lot of baggage in our hyper-capitalistic modern world) is threatened.
- lisper 4y ago
  > Notice the caveat above: "if we share". Human greed is the fly in the ointment. No, it isn't. Basic physics and economics is the fly in the ointment. For a given level of economic activity, a given amount of material wealth will be produced. That wealth can be distributed evenly or unevenly, equitably or inequitably [1], but there is one basic fact that cannot change, which is the that average wealth per capita will equal the total wealth divided by the number of people. So if the population increases without a concomitant increase in total wealth, everyone will necessarily be, on average, worse off, no matter how much we share. Christian theology is based on the idea that "God will provide" and intercede miraculously if we have enough faith. Unfortunately, that belief, as with most religious beliefs, collides violently with reality, and when it does, reality wins. [1] It is also worth noting that an even distribution is not necessarily the same as an equitable one.
  - trasz 4y ago
    >Basic physics and economics is the fly in the ointment. Laws of physics are (believed to be) universal. Economics, on the other hand, is man-made and can be adjusted as required.
    - lisper 4y ago
      That's what the leaders of the Soviet Union thought. They learned the hard way that it isn't true.
      - trasz 4y ago
        That's what every leader thought - every country has a slightly different rules - and many of them ended up quite well.
        lisper 4y ago
        As individuals they may have done well, but that has nothing to do with the fact that the nation failed when their attempts to alter the laws of economics collided with reality.

by lisper 4y ago

kspacewalk2 4y ago

Alternatively, the anomaly is no anomaly at all. Its origins were fortuitous, but rather than a reversion to the baseline of misery it was an unlocking of a new normal though a series of irreversible (or very unlikely reversible) inventions, much like agriculture was. We used one source of energy to power our leap forward, we'll use a different one to sustain a baseline of plenty, or maybe unlock a new level soon. I see no reason whatsoever why this is less likely than the doom and gloom currently so in vogue.

lisper 4y ago
Well, I hope you're right. But I'm not sanguine about civilization's prospects for surviving >2C temp increase, which seems to be where we're headed.

UncleOxidant 4y ago

Berry has written extensively about environmental degradation. Notice the caveat above: "if we share". Human greed is the fly in the ointment. Again, he's written extensively on the impact of human greed on the environment. It's not inconsistent to think that there is enough for all and also to think that when we try to grab too much of that stuff for ourselves (more than what we need) that that mutual enough-ness (I hesitate to use the word "prosperity" here because it's accreted a lot of baggage in our hyper-capitalistic modern world) is threatened.

lisper 4y ago
> Notice the caveat above: "if we share". Human greed is the fly in the ointment. No, it isn't. Basic physics and economics is the fly in the ointment. For a given level of economic activity, a given amount of material wealth will be produced. That wealth can be distributed evenly or unevenly, equitably or inequitably [1], but there is one basic fact that cannot change, which is the that average wealth per capita will equal the total wealth divided by the number of people. So if the population increases without a concomitant increase in total wealth, everyone will necessarily be, on average, worse off, no matter how much we share. Christian theology is based on the idea that "God will provide" and intercede miraculously if we have enough faith. Unfortunately, that belief, as with most religious beliefs, collides violently with reality, and when it does, reality wins. [1] It is also worth noting that an even distribution is not necessarily the same as an equitable one.
- trasz 4y ago
  >Basic physics and economics is the fly in the ointment. Laws of physics are (believed to be) universal. Economics, on the other hand, is man-made and can be adjusted as required.
  - lisper 4y ago
    That's what the leaders of the Soviet Union thought. They learned the hard way that it isn't true.
    - trasz 4y ago
      That's what every leader thought - every country has a slightly different rules - and many of them ended up quite well.
      - lisper 4y ago
        As individuals they may have done well, but that has nothing to do with the fact that the nation failed when their attempts to alter the laws of economics collided with reality.