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Arguing against optimism is arguing against the history of science. We have cures to diseases that were declared unavoidable divine judgements, we have achieved

by wddkcs 3y ago

Arguing against optimism is arguing against the history of science. We have cures to diseases that were declared unavoidable divine judgements, we have achieved feats of engineering that would be unimaginable a century ago. I am not arguing for the deapoilation of the planet. We should preserve our resources as best we can. But future growth requires the usage of what resources we do have, in to achieve outcomes and efficiencies far better than we can imagine. I do agree though, if science wasn't verifiable, it would sound like a pyramid scheme.

Firaxus 3y ago
Technological advances are nice, but you can’t just assume they will happen. There’s no law or axiom that says we will discover something new, and certainly not on any time scale that we could plan against to avoid problems we predict today.
- wddkcs 3y ago
  Based on past trends, it's much more likely we will discover new sources and methods of resource generation, than not. Diamonds were rare, now lab created, electricity was once sparse now ubiquitous. The trend is obvious
breuleux 3y ago
Technological pessimism underestimates the rate of progress, but technological optimism routinely overestimates it. In the 50s people thought we would have superintelligent robots, flying cars, moon colonies and cold fusion by year 2000. In the 60s people were optimistic that we would eradicate all diseases in the near future. Right now some people believe the singularity will happen in the next decade. What could possibly happen in the next century that would be "unimaginable" to them? If you showed today's world to an optimist from a century ago they would see many wondrous things they would never have thought of, but they would also fail to see many of their predicted advancements. And I do think that what optimists predict is usually far more impressive than what actually comes to fruition. That's not to say the pessimists are right, but the optimists simply don't have the track record you seem to think they have.

by wddkcs 3y ago

Firaxus 3y ago

Technological advances are nice, but you can’t just assume they will happen. There’s no law or axiom that says we will discover something new, and certainly not on any time scale that we could plan against to avoid problems we predict today.

wddkcs 3y ago
Based on past trends, it's much more likely we will discover new sources and methods of resource generation, than not. Diamonds were rare, now lab created, electricity was once sparse now ubiquitous. The trend is obvious

breuleux 3y ago

Technological pessimism underestimates the rate of progress, but technological optimism routinely overestimates it. In the 50s people thought we would have superintelligent robots, flying cars, moon colonies and cold fusion by year 2000. In the 60s people were optimistic that we would eradicate all diseases in the near future. Right now some people believe the singularity will happen in the next decade. What could possibly happen in the next century that would be "unimaginable" to them? If you showed today's world to an optimist from a century ago they would see many wondrous things they would never have thought of, but they would also fail to see many of their predicted advancements. And I do think that what optimists predict is usually far more impressive than what actually comes to fruition. That's not to say the pessimists are right, but the optimists simply don't have the track record you seem to think they have.