> This seems like a good counterargument, however on thinking it over I don't think it's valid. I'm not really presenting it as a counterargument, just a thoug

> This seems like a good counterargument, however on thinking it over I don't think it's valid. I'm not really presenting it as a counterargument, just a thought, because at the end of the day we're talking about predicting wether we can find future solutions to future problems. > Based on that chain of thought, I don't think it's valid to draw historical comparisons beyond the last 500 years or so. Perhaps not even the last 100 years. If I were presenting this as a rigorous counterargument, I'd go beyond what you allude; it's not 500, or 100 years of history that we can draw on to predict what will happen in the future. It's 0. We haven't had problems like the ones that will come, we don't know what the theoretical solutions could be, and we don't know wether we'd be able to implement any of those theoretical solutions. We could get lucky and metaphorically "draw heads" from now until eternity, and pointing out that in the past we've sometimes "drawn tails" can't disprove it, you're right. All I'm saying is we've failed plenty in the past, so it's worth considering that perhaps we could fail in the future too. We are more capable, though the problems are bigger. We could get lucky, but we could also get unlucky. We don't know. > Faced with a truly civilization threatening resource shortage in the next decade or century, we could literally move asteroids to solve it. With that in mind, can you really claim it's valid to compare ourselves to neolithic hunter gatherers and say we face the same kind of existential risks over resources? Here I need to point out two things: - Until it's done, having the capacity to mine asteroids will only be theoretical. - Yes— even if we manage to move asteroids. I think it'll be valid comparison for as long as we exist. We are living beings in an environment. We can use energy in clever ways to gain the resources we need to survive and perhaps grow in that environment. The demand for resources and the supply we can access might grow as our population, complexity, and capabilities grow, but we'll forever be grappling this core mechanic of survival: we need to make sure we don't run out of X, else we risk all this we've built to come crashing down. One thing I brought fourth on my third point in that original comment is that perhaps the solution to this timeless question isn't always in the supply of resources. Perhaps we shouldn't always figure out how to get more of X, and instead figure out how we can need less of it. But I'm going now beyond what you just asked me in your comment, sorry.