5 ms·

Huh, its almost like infinite growth is impossible in our context of the natural world. Who would have thought spreadsheets and magic market numbers had little

Huh, its almost like infinite growth is impossible in our context of the natural world. Who would have thought spreadsheets and magic market numbers had little material connection to the resources extracted to extrapolate those numbers.

gretch 4y ago
Well yeah, obviously _infinite_ growth is not possible given the laws of physics. But the whole premise of technology is that you can break the zero-sum and reach arbitrarily high levels. For example Deuterium–tritium fusion runs on hydrogen that's pretty common to find. Yes, if we learn to exploit it, we will one day run out, but by then we'll have new sources of fuel. Similarly solar energy is just 'free' energy that rains down on our planet. We could use that energy to farm fish or cultivate natural populations. We don't do that which is bad, but it's not some impossibility.
- secstate 4y ago
  While you're not technically wrong, the idea of net-zero sources of energy does not address what happens when you start concentrating "free energy" in new places. Fish farms are ecologically monstrosities in most places they exist. Electricity is only one input, fresh water is another, and we haven't figured out where to get that much fresh water for free yet. In many ways these arguments of "there's free energy from hydrogen fusion" feels similar to arguments about solving invasive species with another species because we haven't figured out that the new species will be invasive yet. And in a similar fashion, the local ecology may eventually re-balance (indeed, likely will) but what time scale are we looking at? Humans need human time scales.
  - greedo 4y ago
    Almost all our agriculture AND aquaculture are ecological monstrosities because we don't make the producers pay for externalities.
kiba 4y ago
Eh, only within the current context of society and technology. For example, most of the energy from the sun that hit our planet are just basically wasted. Meanwhile, the sun uselessly radiate away energy that's not even hitting the planet. The reason why fisheries are collapsing is because we don't spend much making our environment more habitable and pollute or use up what's already there.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  >> Huh, its almost like infinite growth is impossible in our context of the natural world. > Eh, only within the current context of society and technology. > For example, most of the energy from the sun that hit our planet are just basically wasted. Meanwhile, the sun uselessly radiate away energy that's not even hitting the planet. You can't magick away the problem with sci-fi fantasies. Those technologies don't actually exist and (with a fairly high probability) may never exist. And in any case, a bigger finite does not an infinite make.
  - kiba 4y ago
    We already have the technology. Just not the economy to take advantage of it. Solar panels, satellites and factories are nothing new to us.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > We already have the technology. Just not the economy to take advantage of it. Solar panels, satellites and factories are nothing new to us. We don't have the technology to pave the planet in solar panels, because we don't have the technology to make it cost effective. Also the solution to the "problem" of "most of the energy from the sun that hit our planet are just basically wasted" is to literally destroy the environment in an industrialization project. Solving the "problem" of "...the sun uselessly radiate away energy that's not even hitting the planet," is also limited by that cost effectiveness problem AND the problem of we don't have the technology to do anything with energy collected by satellites, especially ones half-way around the solar system. Then there's the issue of putting up a few trillion solar power satellites still would allow the sun to "uselessly radiate away energy that's not even hitting the planet."

gretch 4y ago

Well yeah, obviously _infinite_ growth is not possible given the laws of physics. But the whole premise of technology is that you can break the zero-sum and reach arbitrarily high levels. For example Deuterium–tritium fusion runs on hydrogen that's pretty common to find. Yes, if we learn to exploit it, we will one day run out, but by then we'll have new sources of fuel. Similarly solar energy is just 'free' energy that rains down on our planet. We could use that energy to farm fish or cultivate natural populations. We don't do that which is bad, but it's not some impossibility.

secstate 4y ago
While you're not technically wrong, the idea of net-zero sources of energy does not address what happens when you start concentrating "free energy" in new places. Fish farms are ecologically monstrosities in most places they exist. Electricity is only one input, fresh water is another, and we haven't figured out where to get that much fresh water for free yet. In many ways these arguments of "there's free energy from hydrogen fusion" feels similar to arguments about solving invasive species with another species because we haven't figured out that the new species will be invasive yet. And in a similar fashion, the local ecology may eventually re-balance (indeed, likely will) but what time scale are we looking at? Humans need human time scales.
- greedo 4y ago
  Almost all our agriculture AND aquaculture are ecological monstrosities because we don't make the producers pay for externalities.

kiba 4y ago

Eh, only within the current context of society and technology. For example, most of the energy from the sun that hit our planet are just basically wasted. Meanwhile, the sun uselessly radiate away energy that's not even hitting the planet. The reason why fisheries are collapsing is because we don't spend much making our environment more habitable and pollute or use up what's already there.

tablespoon 4y ago
>> Huh, its almost like infinite growth is impossible in our context of the natural world. > Eh, only within the current context of society and technology. > For example, most of the energy from the sun that hit our planet are just basically wasted. Meanwhile, the sun uselessly radiate away energy that's not even hitting the planet. You can't magick away the problem with sci-fi fantasies. Those technologies don't actually exist and (with a fairly high probability) may never exist. And in any case, a bigger finite does not an infinite make.
- kiba 4y ago
  We already have the technology. Just not the economy to take advantage of it. Solar panels, satellites and factories are nothing new to us.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > We already have the technology. Just not the economy to take advantage of it. Solar panels, satellites and factories are nothing new to us. We don't have the technology to pave the planet in solar panels, because we don't have the technology to make it cost effective. Also the solution to the "problem" of "most of the energy from the sun that hit our planet are just basically wasted" is to literally destroy the environment in an industrialization project. Solving the "problem" of "...the sun uselessly radiate away energy that's not even hitting the planet," is also limited by that cost effectiveness problem AND the problem of we don't have the technology to do anything with energy collected by satellites, especially ones half-way around the solar system. Then there's the issue of putting up a few trillion solar power satellites still would allow the sun to "uselessly radiate away energy that's not even hitting the planet."