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I encourage everyone to read Merchants of Despair by Robert Zubrin. https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Despair-Environmentalists-Pseudo-Scientists-Antihumanism/dp

I encourage everyone to read Merchants of Despair by Robert Zubrin. https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Despair-Environmentalists-Pseudo-Scientists-Antihumanism/dp/159403737X/ https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Despair-Environmentalists-P... IMO, this is the most important book written in the 21st century. Don't read the whole thing, just read the first chapter. The first chapter will give you what you need to know. Here's a summary: Every new person born has a mouth to eat, but they are not a useless eater. They are also born with hands to work. They work to produce what they consume. We ensure they consume no more than they produce with a system called money. The more dense a population, the higher the per-capita income. This is because the main thing that determines your standard of living is the technology your society has access to. The technology your society has access to is directly proportional to the total number of man-years lived before that date. This is because humans create tech at a constant level. For every X man-years lived, a new invention will be created. Every person is both with a mouth to eat, hands to work, and a brain to invent. But won't we run out of resources? Sure, we ran out of whale oil. That did not matter. We invented a bad replacement (town gas) which killed a lot of people, then we invented a better replacement called electric lights. Humanity marches on.

baxtr 3y ago
You might like this episode: https://nav.al/david-deutsch https://nav.al/david-deutsch
iancmceachern 3y ago
And we solved problems using methods we hadn't even conceived of yet. I'm confident we will figure out new and innovative ways to solve problems in ways that aren't really even imaginable
- ASalazarMX 3y ago
  This is the same problem, borrowing from future generations. Why solve our problems now when we can inherit them to the next generation?
  - B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
    Do you want to leave to the next generation a virgin planet, with not even a mud hut for shelter? I don't. They inherit the labor of many centuries, they can continue it.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    It's not so simple. Some technical innovations help the earth, sewage treatment for example. Others, as you highlight, don't, like fossil fuels. I'm saying I'm hopeful that more od the former will save us from the latter.
  - RecycledEle 3y ago
    > This is the same problem, borrowing from future generations. Why solve our problems now when we can inherit them to the next generation? Developing new technology is a gift, a legacy to pass down to future generations.
friend_and_foe 3y ago
So I think the argument made in this article doesn't preclude all of that. Production is always converting a resource into a more useful resource, moving it to a more organized and useful state, reversing entropy. Some of those resources are very limited and in significantly more demand than can possibly be made available. That demand is often inelastic; human beings will die if they can't get it. I'm personally pretty much with you on these points. Minds solve problems, people find a way. I think claims of a worldwide collapse are absurd. But I think crises will happen, as they always have, and it's important to consider blind spots.
- copperx 3y ago
  > I think claims of a worldwide collapse are absurd Civilization collapsed quickly but temporarily a few years ago because of a virus. Have we forgotten already? It's all very fragile.
  - RecycledEle 3y ago
    > Civilization collapsed quickly but temporarily a few years ago because of a virus. No, it didn't. I think you might be experiencing a hallucination. How many people within 50 miles of you starved to death during this "collapse" of civilization? I've seen this from my adopted mom. She claimed 6 or 7 people she knew died of COVID-19, then when I asked her for names she named people I knew were still alive.
tivert 3y ago
> Every new person born has a mouth to eat, but they are not a useless eater. They are also born with hands to work. They work to produce what they consume. We ensure they consume no more than they produce with a system called money. Is this a clever side-step to mask a ecological catastrophe with market economics (e.g. the environment didn't collapse, the market just solved a resource allocation problem by making food unaffordable to ?illions, nothing to see here). > The more dense a population, the higher the per-capita income. This is because the main thing that determines your standard of living is the technology your society has access to. The technology your society has access to is directly proportional to the total number of man-years lived before that date. This is because humans create tech at a constant level. For every X man-years lived, a new invention will be created. Every person is both with a mouth to eat, hands to work, and a brain to invent. No matter what your population density, your society will not be able to build a perpetual motion machine. They're also not making more arable land (vertical farms are not a substitute), which is ultimately what those dense cities are dependent on. > But won't we run out of resources? Sure, we ran out of whale oil. That did not matter. We invented a bad replacement (town gas) which killed a lot of people, then we invented a better replacement called electric lights. That's fallacious reasoning. As they say: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Just because in the past one s substitute could be found for an exhausted resource, that doesn't mean a substitute can be found for every needed dwindling resource in the future. > Humanity marches on. Sure, but how many? If it's 500 million, what about the 7.5 billion that didn't make it?
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  > Is this a clever side-step to mask a ecological catastrophe with market economics (e.g. the environment didn't collapse, the market just solved a resource allocation problem by making food unaffordable to ?illions, nothing to see here). Dr. Zubrin's main point is: look at history. So let's look at history. Does a growing population increase hunger or decrease it? Throughout all of history increasing population is correlated with decreasing hunger. If a "scientist" can not even look at the existing data to see that EVERY SINGLE TIME it contradicts their hypothesis, then that is not a scientist. See "Merchants of Despair" for a more eloquent explanation than I could ever give. > No matter what your population density, your society will not be able to build a perpetual motion machine. I don't see the relevance. > They're also not making more arable land (vertical farms are not a substitute), which is ultimately what those dense cities are dependent on. The goal is not to maximize arable land. The goal is to feed everyone. Our modern crops can produce much more on the land we have than humans could ever produce before. > As they say: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Just because in the past one s substitute could be found for an exhausted resource, that doesn't mean a substitute can be found for every needed dwindling resource in the future. As I said, If a "scientist" can not even look at the existing data to see that EVERY SINGLE TIME it contradicts their hypothesis, then that is not a scientist. > Sure, but how many? If it's 500 million, what about the 7.5 billion that didn't make it? You might be experiencing a hallucination. I believe there are currently close to 8 billion people on this planet. Please tell me how many people you think are on this planet. If you think there used to be 8 billion people on this planet, and that 7.5 billion of them died, please tell me when that happened and what year you think it is right now.

baxtr 3y ago

You might like this episode: https://nav.al/david-deutsch https://nav.al/david-deutsch

iancmceachern 3y ago

And we solved problems using methods we hadn't even conceived of yet. I'm confident we will figure out new and innovative ways to solve problems in ways that aren't really even imaginable

ASalazarMX 3y ago
This is the same problem, borrowing from future generations. Why solve our problems now when we can inherit them to the next generation?
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
  Do you want to leave to the next generation a virgin planet, with not even a mud hut for shelter? I don't. They inherit the labor of many centuries, they can continue it.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  It's not so simple. Some technical innovations help the earth, sewage treatment for example. Others, as you highlight, don't, like fossil fuels. I'm saying I'm hopeful that more od the former will save us from the latter.
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  > This is the same problem, borrowing from future generations. Why solve our problems now when we can inherit them to the next generation? Developing new technology is a gift, a legacy to pass down to future generations.

friend_and_foe 3y ago

So I think the argument made in this article doesn't preclude all of that. Production is always converting a resource into a more useful resource, moving it to a more organized and useful state, reversing entropy. Some of those resources are very limited and in significantly more demand than can possibly be made available. That demand is often inelastic; human beings will die if they can't get it. I'm personally pretty much with you on these points. Minds solve problems, people find a way. I think claims of a worldwide collapse are absurd. But I think crises will happen, as they always have, and it's important to consider blind spots.

copperx 3y ago
> I think claims of a worldwide collapse are absurd Civilization collapsed quickly but temporarily a few years ago because of a virus. Have we forgotten already? It's all very fragile.
- RecycledEle 3y ago
  > Civilization collapsed quickly but temporarily a few years ago because of a virus. No, it didn't. I think you might be experiencing a hallucination. How many people within 50 miles of you starved to death during this "collapse" of civilization? I've seen this from my adopted mom. She claimed 6 or 7 people she knew died of COVID-19, then when I asked her for names she named people I knew were still alive.

tivert 3y ago

> Every new person born has a mouth to eat, but they are not a useless eater. They are also born with hands to work. They work to produce what they consume. We ensure they consume no more than they produce with a system called money. Is this a clever side-step to mask a ecological catastrophe with market economics (e.g. the environment didn't collapse, the market just solved a resource allocation problem by making food unaffordable to ?illions, nothing to see here). > The more dense a population, the higher the per-capita income. This is because the main thing that determines your standard of living is the technology your society has access to. The technology your society has access to is directly proportional to the total number of man-years lived before that date. This is because humans create tech at a constant level. For every X man-years lived, a new invention will be created. Every person is both with a mouth to eat, hands to work, and a brain to invent. No matter what your population density, your society will not be able to build a perpetual motion machine. They're also not making more arable land (vertical farms are not a substitute), which is ultimately what those dense cities are dependent on. > But won't we run out of resources? Sure, we ran out of whale oil. That did not matter. We invented a bad replacement (town gas) which killed a lot of people, then we invented a better replacement called electric lights. That's fallacious reasoning. As they say: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Just because in the past one s substitute could be found for an exhausted resource, that doesn't mean a substitute can be found for every needed dwindling resource in the future. > Humanity marches on. Sure, but how many? If it's 500 million, what about the 7.5 billion that didn't make it?

RecycledEle 3y ago
> Is this a clever side-step to mask a ecological catastrophe with market economics (e.g. the environment didn't collapse, the market just solved a resource allocation problem by making food unaffordable to ?illions, nothing to see here). Dr. Zubrin's main point is: look at history. So let's look at history. Does a growing population increase hunger or decrease it? Throughout all of history increasing population is correlated with decreasing hunger. If a "scientist" can not even look at the existing data to see that EVERY SINGLE TIME it contradicts their hypothesis, then that is not a scientist. See "Merchants of Despair" for a more eloquent explanation than I could ever give. > No matter what your population density, your society will not be able to build a perpetual motion machine. I don't see the relevance. > They're also not making more arable land (vertical farms are not a substitute), which is ultimately what those dense cities are dependent on. The goal is not to maximize arable land. The goal is to feed everyone. Our modern crops can produce much more on the land we have than humans could ever produce before. > As they say: past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Just because in the past one s substitute could be found for an exhausted resource, that doesn't mean a substitute can be found for every needed dwindling resource in the future. As I said, If a "scientist" can not even look at the existing data to see that EVERY SINGLE TIME it contradicts their hypothesis, then that is not a scientist. > Sure, but how many? If it's 500 million, what about the 7.5 billion that didn't make it? You might be experiencing a hallucination. I believe there are currently close to 8 billion people on this planet. Please tell me how many people you think are on this planet. If you think there used to be 8 billion people on this planet, and that 7.5 billion of them died, please tell me when that happened and what year you think it is right now.